Do Not Erase: Mathematicians and Their Chalkboards

Jessica Wynne

Published by Princeton University Press 2021

Do Not Erase

Mathematicians and Their Chalkboards

Jessica Wynne

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691222820

Overview
Contents

About this book

A photographic exploration of mathematicians’ chalkboards

“A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns,” wrote the British mathematician G. H. Hardy. In Do Not Erase, photographer Jessica Wynne presents remarkable examples of this idea through images of mathematicians’ chalkboards. While other fields have replaced chalkboards with whiteboards and digital presentations, mathematicians remain loyal to chalk for puzzling out their ideas and communicating their research. Wynne offers more than one hundred stunning photographs of these chalkboards, gathered from a diverse group of mathematicians around the world. The photographs are accompanied by essays from each mathematician, reflecting on their work and processes. Together, pictures and words provide an illuminating meditation on the unique relationships among mathematics, art, and creativity.

The mathematicians featured in this collection comprise exciting new voices alongside established figures, including Sun-Yung Alice Chang, Alain Connes, Misha Gromov, Andre Neves, Kasso Okoudjou, Peter Shor, Christina Sormani, Terence Tao, Claire Voisin, and many others. The companion essays give insights into how the chalkboard serves as a special medium for mathematical expression. The volume also includes an introduction by the author, an afterword by New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson, and biographical information for each contributor.

Do Not Erase is a testament to the myriad ways that mathematicians use their chalkboards to reveal the conceptual and visual beauty of their discipline—shapes, figures, formulas, and conjectures created through imagination, argument, and speculation.

Author / Editor information

Jessica Wynne is associate professor of photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her photographs are in collections at the Morgan Library and the Museum of Modern Art (SF), and her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. She has been featured in such publications as the New York Times, the Guardian, and Fortune. Wynne is represented by the Edwynn Houk Gallery and she lives in New York City. Twitter @jessicawynne6 Instagram @jessica___wynne Website www.jessicawynne.com

Reviews

"In this remarkable book, Jessica Wynne’s ambitious collection of blackboard images offers a distinctive picture of the working world of professional mathematics. With contributions from a huge cast of mathematicians, Do Not Erase gives a unique perspective on the profession and its most famous medium."—Michael J. Barany, University of Edinburgh

"Jessica Wynne had a truly inspired idea when she began taking photographs of chalkboards filled with mathematical figures, diagrams, equations, formulas, and theorems. Do Not Erase captures the beauty and messiness, seriousness and playfulness, endless searching and creativity, and energy and life contained in these boards. It contributes to the mathematical literature while bringing the beauty of mathematics to general readers."—John J. Watkins, author of Number Theory: A Historical Approach

"What does thought look like? As Jessica Wynne shows us, the action of the mind might have no external expression as eloquent as the human, timebound, build-it-up-and-break-it-back-down surface of a working thinker’s chalkboard. Wynne’s daringly soft-spoken photographs testify at once to the breadth, concreteness, and quietly thrilling historical depth of mathematical thinking as a way of life."—Joel Smith, Morgan Library & Museum

"Do Not Erase . . . reveals the scribbles, workings and eureka moments of minds bursting with equations and theories, a paean to mental graft and the blackboards that display it. You can almost feel the tickle of dust in the nose, the thump of chalk on the board, the swish of a cuff brushing away a mistake."---Nicola Davis, The Observer

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Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
INTRODUCTION Publicly Available Download PDF	VI
CHALKBOARDS & REFLECTIONS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
AFTERWORD Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	220
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	224
THE MATHEMATICIANS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226