ICTS-TIFR’s Centre Director writes about its blackboards.
BY RAJESH GOPAKUMAR
Why blackboards? If you are not a scientist, you might associate blackboards with fuddy-duddy schools of a distant time — a prosaic antique. After all, in an era of smart boards, even that monstrosity called the whiteboard (which is as different from a blackboard as chalk and cheese, so to say) appears passe. Why, then, do blackboards evoke strong emotions amongst scientists, especially in the theoretical disciplines?
Blackboards are canvases where thoughts unspool from the mind and are reified and refined. Ideas incarnate as pictures, equations or “graphiti” as they attempt to leapfrog from one mind to another and trigger further neuronal cascades. From this ferment, a few ultimately survive, which then cohere into a scientific result or, even more occasionally, into the breakthroughs that change our conception of the world. We often get to know about the end product of this process but rarely about their fledgling beginnings.
When visitors come to ICTS, they are often struck by the profusion of blackboards on campus. Not just in offices and lecture halls (our Ramanujan auditorium perhaps has one of the longest blackboards in the world!) but also in public spaces, the “commons” if you wish. These boards, often green and deep indigo (but never white), are in corridors, alcoves, the garden (in Shantiniketan spirit), and even the cafeteria. I observe their daily changing tableaux as I walk to my office or for lunch, and to me, it is a signifier of the health of the institution.
Our various blackboards have slightly different characters depending on their location. The ones in offices, which you glimpse through open doors, are the sites of close(d) collaborations. Here, the guru-shishya jugalbandi unfolds as students master how to think through this medium, as they take their first steps into research. Gradually, a mode of collaboration arises from the sparring of minds and the duelling of chalk. (Parenthetically, chalk inspires strong feelings too. The connoisseurs swear by Hagoromo chalk, produced through a secret process. It is fondly said that it’s impossible to write a false theorem using this chalk. A friend recently gifted me a box, and I am waiting to see if it will do miracles for my research.)
Lecture rooms, on the other hand, are typically more like performance venues — of compositions already prepared, though with room for improvisation. Some lecturers write beautifully, and even after the rooms are emptied, their calligraphy stands for a transient while to please the eyes. The blackboards here transmit old and new wisdom as younger generations are drawn into the adventure of scientific discovery.
There is also whimsy in evidence, especially in public areas, in the form of a slogan or a sketch. Recently, ICTS had its in-house Banksy, whose Manga-style artwork materialises overnight. I find myself looking forward to spotting a new illustration as I enter the building each morning.
Illustrations by Manish Jain (photographs by Shalabh Gautam).
Central to ICTS are the blackboards in the quadrangle near our pantry. The coffee and the chalk are essential ingredients for the thrum of creativity. Here, it is more like making music in the park, with passersby listening in or daringly plunging into some heated discussion. The boards are an illegible scrum of scrawls, and yet somehow, everyone there is able to discern the different chords and chime in. Our continually changing set of program visitors also gravitate here and add their own tunes to the Antaakshari. Magic happens. If there is such a thing as an institutional or collective mind in a place like ICTS, it is these spaces with their boards that bring it out and give expression to it.
Yet through all these very human dramas, the humble blackboard itself stands zen-like, as a testifier to the ephemeral nature of thinking. Ideas, good or bad, are eventually swabbed away by the cleaners, leaving again a blank slate. Cohorts of students come and go, perhaps retaining memories of their times spent at the boards in this place. Eventually, with the years, even the faculty move on, having lived their life in science while the institution inheres. I look at Einstein’s or Feynman’s “last blackboard” and see snapshots of a mind interrupted in its flow. But the blackboard simply waits for others to pick up the chalk.
It was very inspiring, Rajesh. I often am able to see a lot of scientists sharing their personal anecdotes with blackboards and the touch it gives them over other boards, my personal experience with blackboards are mostly the same except for the part of erasing my writings. 🙂
Great piece, Gopa!! Always thought of blackboards as a medium of communication but never as a platform for clarifying thoughts to create stories. A very posing any perspective indeed!
Such a heartwarming piece!
I have somehow observed a difference in sitting on a chair+writing on paper, versus, standing up+holding a chalk+writing on the board.
Wah! What an ode to the blackboard! This article brought in a stream of images of blackboards filled with poetry of mathematical symbols that I have seen directly or in photos.
Beautifully written, Sir.
In the corporate world, I am used to whiteboards. Similar feelings evolve for me with a whiteboard. I love the process of evolving our architecture on the board together.
Each piece comes together to form an end product, a comprehensive solution.
I can imagine it would be more so with the blackboard for the world of scientists.