7 ms·

I can remember rolling my eyes at a writer using a mechanical typewriter decades after word processors had taken over. Did they thaw out of a glacier? At the s

I can remember rolling my eyes at a writer using a mechanical typewriter decades after word processors had taken over. Did they thaw out of a glacier? At the same time I love physical media. As a math professor I defend a widespread preference for blackboards over soul-sucking whiteboards, imagining that musicians will still play grand pianos in a century, and they'll still snicker over Ryan Gosling playing a toy piano under the spotlight in that classic movie "La La Land". I've hoarded Hagoromo chalk; I'm the one with the chalk attaché case in [1]. I've always carried multiple grades of drawing paper, and I've worked through many hundreds of artist grade felt tip pens, scanning all my math notes for thirty years. Then, pandemic. Just as World War 2 accelerated women in the workplace, the pandemic has accelerated the uptake of digital tools for visual presentation. To teach over Zoom, we needed to embrace drawing on a tablet. I understand that the pandemic radically accelerated similar trends in architecture. The algorithmic possibilities of drawing on a tablet are truly addictive; returning to paper feels like returning to a mechanical typewriter. For my purposes, Concepts offers the most involving algorithmic experience; I wrote [2] to support my note taking and diagrams for papers. However, Notability offers the least friction. I can have the same psychological relationship to taking notes on my tablet as I had with phyical paper, with the benefits of algorithmic reuse. (Pushing the envelope exposes how inconsistently Notability handles implicit layers, but one learns to draw around this.) In a few decades, after all living mathematicians have drawn on tablets since birth, math will be far more visual, conveying ideas with far more immediacy. Math communication is now still largely constrained by its resemblance to typeset prose. Ever leave a startup because reading your coworkers' code put you in "Just kill me now!" territory? I did. Mathematicians write the equivalent of bad code, rarely actually machine-checked, to formalize their ideas. Other mathematicians try to decipher this code, to reverse-engineer the ideas. We declare people who can actually do this as having a gift for mathematics. As I learn to teach combinatorics more visually, my classes swell with students who share my frustration. I've come to realize this summer that I pretty much despise mathematics. I can't wait for the visual revolution. This revolution didn't take hold on physical paper; one needs a digital accelerant. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNUjg9X4g8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNUjg9X4g8 [2] https://github.com/Syzygies/concepts-artboards https://github.com/Syzygies/concepts-artboards

Archelaos 4y ago
> I defend a widespread preference for blackboards over soul-sucking whiteboards To this day it is a real mystery to me why people would prefer whiteboards over blackboards.
- dijit 4y ago
  I am not kidding when I say this although it sounds absurd to adult me: I was told when I was a kid it was due to racism. I suspect actually it was simply more economical, and probably something to do with chalk dust. I don’t miss chalk dust.
  - Archelaos 4y ago
    > probably something to do with chalk dust. I don’t miss chalk dust. However, the chalk dust has been replaced by synthetic colours that can ruin any cloth they come in contact with and are much harder to remove from the skin than chalk.
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > To this day it is a real mystery to me why people would prefer whiteboards over blackboards. I vastly prefer whiteboards over blackboards. It's the physical sensation of writing for me. Using markers is smooth, a bit like writing with a pen on paper. Writing with chalk is rough and technically difficult - there is a component of pressure one needs to master. It's not obvious to me how the finished product is any better with a blackboard or a whiteboard (although I've heard several people try). Or how whiteboards are "soul-sucking". People who prefer blackboards seem like those who prefer vinyl over CDs, but with even fewer coherent arguments. Which is fine - everyone has a hobby - but maybe be a little less vitriolic about it? Whiteboards do have the downside of staining over time, but using glass is a foolproof solution to that particular problem. It's amazing how inexpensively one can find very large, used, glass-covered picture or art frames.
  - Archelaos 4y ago
    > Using markers is smooth, a bit like writing with a pen on paper. What I personally like least about whiteboards is that I cannot use the whiteboard markers sideways like a chalk, which is the best writing position to avoid contact with the board. When I write with a pen on paper, I can put my arm on the paper, but this is not advisable with a whiteboard. The pointed ends of the markers lead to a very uncomfortable position where the hand needs to be turned as far out as possible to bring the tip of the pen as perpenticular as possible onto the board. In this position it is quite difficult to achieve good quality handwriting. I myself know only one person whose whiteboard writing is genuinely visually appealing. However, I also agree with other commentators here: You need a good blackboard and good chalk to really have fun writing on it.

Archelaos 4y ago

> I defend a widespread preference for blackboards over soul-sucking whiteboards To this day it is a real mystery to me why people would prefer whiteboards over blackboards.

dijit 4y ago
I am not kidding when I say this although it sounds absurd to adult me: I was told when I was a kid it was due to racism. I suspect actually it was simply more economical, and probably something to do with chalk dust. I don’t miss chalk dust.
- Archelaos 4y ago
  > probably something to do with chalk dust. I don’t miss chalk dust. However, the chalk dust has been replaced by synthetic colours that can ruin any cloth they come in contact with and are much harder to remove from the skin than chalk.
nordsieck 4y ago
> To this day it is a real mystery to me why people would prefer whiteboards over blackboards. I vastly prefer whiteboards over blackboards. It's the physical sensation of writing for me. Using markers is smooth, a bit like writing with a pen on paper. Writing with chalk is rough and technically difficult - there is a component of pressure one needs to master. It's not obvious to me how the finished product is any better with a blackboard or a whiteboard (although I've heard several people try). Or how whiteboards are "soul-sucking". People who prefer blackboards seem like those who prefer vinyl over CDs, but with even fewer coherent arguments. Which is fine - everyone has a hobby - but maybe be a little less vitriolic about it? Whiteboards do have the downside of staining over time, but using glass is a foolproof solution to that particular problem. It's amazing how inexpensively one can find very large, used, glass-covered picture or art frames.
- Archelaos 4y ago
  > Using markers is smooth, a bit like writing with a pen on paper. What I personally like least about whiteboards is that I cannot use the whiteboard markers sideways like a chalk, which is the best writing position to avoid contact with the board. When I write with a pen on paper, I can put my arm on the paper, but this is not advisable with a whiteboard. The pointed ends of the markers lead to a very uncomfortable position where the hand needs to be turned as far out as possible to bring the tip of the pen as perpenticular as possible onto the board. In this position it is quite difficult to achieve good quality handwriting. I myself know only one person whose whiteboard writing is genuinely visually appealing. However, I also agree with other commentators here: You need a good blackboard and good chalk to really have fun writing on it.