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Do Not Erase: Mathematicians and Their Chalkboards Kindle Edition
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.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPrinceton University Press
- Publication dateJune 22, 2021
- File size75883 KB
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From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Review
"[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." ― MathSciNet
"Beautiful. . . . [This] book will also remain a monument for history, too."---Athanase Papadopoulos, zbMATH Open
"Winner of the PROSE Award in Popular Science and Mathematics, Association of American Publishers"
"An incredible, intense delight to read and study . . . Do Not Erase has become my favorite book to randomly explore."---Edward J. Valauskas, First Monday
"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
"This is a wonderful mirror that Jessica Wynne shows us mathematicians of a world that is so very familiar when looking at it from the inside of our world of mathematics. . . . [that also] forces us to think in a different way about what we are doing day in and day out."---Adhemar Bultheel, MAA Reviews
"This is an original, elegant, if baffling book."---Andrew Robinson, Nature
"[Wynne] forces us to look at the chalkboards themselves, to see them as documents or artifacts, without the irresistible distraction of human presence."---Brian Hayes, American Scientist
Review
"The blackboard is a window into the mathematician’s mind and the complicated tangle of thoughts, feelings, and impulses that reside there. Do Not Erase is an unprecedented document of creativity frozen in calcite."―Jordan Ellenberg, author of Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else
"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
"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
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B08QMM2MD8
- Publisher : Princeton University Press (June 22, 2021)
- Publication date : June 22, 2021
- Language : English
- File size : 75883 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Print length : 334 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,214,891 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #403 in Individual Photographers eBooks
- #2,373 in Individual Photographer Monographs
- #5,954 in Mathematics (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2024Bought as gift. Receiver absolutely loves it. Just a fun book to look at and flip through.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2024This was a gift for my daughter who just completed a master's degree in Applied Mathematics. The illustrations are beautiful and she loved it!
- Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2024It was a good quality cover. Gifted it to a family member who is a math researcher and he loved it. Highly recommend !
- Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2022This book was still sealed in plastic wrap when received and well protected in its cardboard shipping sleave. As a retired mathematician who had seen the book’s reviews in journals and knowing some of the mathematicians described in the book I wanted to have my curiosity and interests supplemented. The binding and quality of the colour photographs is quite satisfying and even though the author is not a mathematician, her short essays that accompany each photo are illuminating and informatie.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2022Wonderful book!
- Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2021Beautiful photographs and great essays!
- Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2022Cannot go to the PO to return it. It was a gift that came damaged. The box , the cover and the pages. Disappointed.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2022I wasn’t impressed. It reminds me of scribble on a board.
Top reviews from other countries
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Santiago CarassaleReviewed in Mexico on August 13, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Impresionante libro sobre el substrato sensible del pensamiento
Impresionante recuperación de la experiencia sensible del pensamiento más abstracto que hemos creado los seres humanos. Muy buenos testimonios de primera mano de muchos matemáticos y muy buenas fotografías de los pizarrones. Un buen recordatorio para los fetichismos matemátizantes de la actualidad, que también las matemáticas son un campo de experimentación hipotética (Peirce)
Santiago Carassale
Reviewed in Mexico on August 13, 2021
Images in this review -
Carola MagnaReviewed in Germany on July 19, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Wunderbar
Ich habe es einer Mathematik-Lehrerin geschenkt. Ich glaube, es ist sehr gut angekommen.
- Matteo C.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book
Reading about all these other mathematicians' experiences is heartwarming. The combination of chalkboard pictures and personal accounts is very effective in delivering the awe and humanity of mathematics. Gift this to someone you want to glimpse at the experience of being a math researcher, read it with your loved ones.
- BarbaraReviewed in Germany on April 26, 2022
4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful snapshot into the minds of others and makes maths more “real”
Pleasure
- david revellReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book
Really good book recommend this book to everyone