{ "type": "Article", "authors": [ { "type": "Person" } ], "identifiers": [], "title": "Book reviews", "meta": {}, "content": [ { "type": "Figure", "id": "fig1", "licenses": [ { "type": "CreativeWork", "content": [ { "type": "Paragraph", "content": [ "All rights reserved." ] } ] } ], "content": [ { "type": "ImageObject", "contentUrl": "MAG-169_Book-cover-cropped.svg", "mediaType": "image/svg+xml", "meta": { "inline": false } } ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "p1", "content": [ "Chalk – the soft white sedimentary rock many of us use on chalkboards to\nexpress our mathematical thoughts and ideas – is the central character\nin ", { "type": "Emphasis", "content": [ "Do Not Erase: Mathematicians and Their Chalkboards" ] }, ". This\nremarkable book exposes many layers, as often happens in geology, each\nlayer a story that is beautifully told by photographer Jessica Wynne." ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "p2", "content": [ "Wynne tells us in her introduction something about the way her idea for\nthis book came about. Her parents were teachers and on weekends she and\nher sisters would often play in classrooms that were “hot and musty and\nsmelled of teenagers and chalk.” Years later she led a group of\nphotography students on a study abroad trip to India where a school\nprincipal took them up to the roof of a schoolhouse. Chalkboards filled\nwith lessons in Hindi ran all along the low wall surrounding the roof.\nWynne photographed each chalkboard, beautiful and yet inaccessible to her." ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "p3", "content": [ "In ", { "type": "Emphasis", "content": [ "Do Not Erase" ] }, " Wynne similarly displays more than a hundred\nphotographs of chalkboards that express the beauty of mathematics and\nthe creativity of mathematicians from around the world. Each photograph\nis accompanied by a short essay on the facing page where an eminent\nmathematician talks about their chalkboard, explaining the images on the\nboard and the collaborative human process that produced them." ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "p4", "content": [ "My favorite chalkboard in this book is one that, as mathematician Nancy\nHingston explains, could be understood by almost anyone, even a creature\nin another galaxy (see Figure ", { "type": "Cite", "target": "S0-F1", "content": [ "1" ] }, "). It is simplicity itself. On the left she has drawn a\nrather ordinary looking doughnut, except that it has two holes instead\nof just one, and below it the exact same doughnut, but this time with\nthe arch from one hole passing through the other hole so that the\nresulting doughnut is now a bit tangled. Then on the right side of the\nchalkboard she has a very long “doughnut” with six holes and next to it\nan absolutely gorgeous drawing of a mathematically equivalent,\nincredibly tangled object with the same six holes that immediately\nreminds one of a wonderful sculpture by Henry Moore." ] }, { "type": "Figure", "id": "S0-F1", "caption": [ { "type": "Paragraph", "content": [ "A photo of Nancy Hingston’s chalkboard from the book." ] } ], "licenses": [ { "type": "CreativeWork", "content": [ { "type": "Paragraph", "content": [ "All rights reserved." ] } ] } ], "content": [ { "type": "ImageObject", "contentUrl": "MAG-169_figure_86-6_Nancy-Hingston3_0-cropped.svg", "mediaType": "image/svg+xml", "meta": { "inline": false } } ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "p5", "content": [ "My favorite essay in this book is by Fields medalist Terence Tao on the\ntwin prime conjecture: we have known since the time of Euclid that there\nare infinitely many prime numbers, but we do not yet know whether there\nare infinitely many ", { "type": "Emphasis", "content": [ "twin primes" ] }, " such as 17 and 19, or 179 and 181,\nor 1487 and 1489. Tao uses a wonderful metaphor involving fog and\nmist, mountain peaks and fertile valleys, to describe the interconnected\nweb of ideas and results that surround this famous unsolved problem, and\nhis chalkboard is filled with formulas, theorems, still more\nconjectures, and various arrows linking everything together." ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "p6", "content": [ "Another essay tells us about two mathematicians, who had been working\nobsessively for a very, very long time on a problem called the Willmore\nconjecture, when they suddenly cracked the problem during a family\nThanksgiving Day celebration as things finally clicked for them. André\nNeves and Fernando Codá Marques had just found the exact optimal shape\nfor a surface with one hole that minimizes a natural bending energy\ncalled the ", { "type": "Emphasis", "content": [ "Willmore energy" ] }, ". Their optimal surface is lovely and\nlooks like a very fat doughnut with a tiny hole in the middle that you\ncould just barely get your little finger into. After nailing their\nsolution at long last, it looked so natural and simple to them that they\ncould finally just relax and go back and enjoy the rest of Thanksgiving\nDay with everyone else.\n" ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "p7", "content": [ { "type": "Emphasis", "content": [ "Do Not Erase" ] }, " is a mathematics book that at its core is\nfundamentally about beauty and creativity. My copy currently resides on\na coffee table where it joins several of other art books. It now sits\nquite comfortably right next to ", { "type": "Emphasis", "content": [ "Monet: A Retrospective" ] }, " and\nphotographer John Fielder’s ", { "type": "Emphasis", "content": [ "Colorado 1870–2000" ] }, "." ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "p8", "content": [ "Jessica Wynne, ", { "type": "Emphasis", "content": [ "Do Not Erase: Mathematicians and Their Chalkboards" ] }, ". Princeton University Press, 2021, 240 pages, Hardcover ISBN 978-0-691-19922-1." ] }, { "type": "Paragraph", "id": "authorinfo", "content": [ "\nJohn Watkins is an emeritus professor of\nmathematics at Colorado College, with wide interests in graph theory,\nring theory, and the history of mathematics. John also loves skiing and\nclimbing the mountains of Colorado.\n", { "type": "Link", "target": "mailto:jwatkins@coloradocollege.edu", "content": [ "jwatkins@coloradocollege.edu" ] } ] } ] }