Do not clean this blackboard -- Feynman anecdote

[Macavity]

Never sure why it fell to *cleaners* to clean Scientists' blackboards...
http://nautil.us/blog/the-day-feynman-worked-out-black_hole-radiation-on-my-blackboard
An interesting / amusing anecdote to ponder though! 🥳

Edited September 3, 2020 by Macavity

[Louis D]

Why cellphone cameras are so handy to have today.  Someone is always snapping an image of a whiteboard in a conference room after a productive brainstorming session at work.

[Paul M]

I've read most of Feynman's own anecdotes. As we know he could tell a story!

But there must be many more Feynman anecdotes that he didn't write. 

Here's Murray Gell-Mann talking about him

 

 

[PeterW]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein's_Blackboard
put that board rubber away.

 

peter

[martin_h]

I know. It happens to me all the time 😀

[wimvb]

I think we should pin 📌 this thread. Just in case.

[George Jones]

About four or five years ago, my daughter made a drawing of some Harry Potter characters in the bottom right corner of the board of my office. This is the only thing that doesn't get erased.

[Guest]

On 03/09/2020 at 19:33, Louis D said:

Why cellphone cameras are so handy to have today.  Someone is always snapping an image of a whiteboard in a conference room after a productive brainstorming session at work.

I did an open university maths/physics course a few years ago. When we had face to face tutorials where the tutor worked through various examples there was always a long delay after each one while many of the students queued up to take pictures of the whiteboard. It was a pain in the a**

[wimvb]

19 minutes ago, woodblock said:

I did an open university maths/physics course a few years ago. When we had face to face tutorials where the tutor worked through various examples there was always a long delay after each one while many of the students queued up to take pictures of the whiteboard. It was a pain in the a**

That's where chat rooms come in handy. My students let one person take a picture, who then shares it on a chat. Technological advancement in action.

[Louis D]

26 minutes ago, woodblock said:

I did an open university maths/physics course a few years ago. When we had face to face tutorials where the tutor worked through various examples there was always a long delay after each one while many of the students queued up to take pictures of the whiteboard. It was a pain in the a**

I wouldn't have any experience with that.  The last class I took was for my Master's program in December 1992.  Definitely no cameras in the room that I can recall.  They would have almost had to have been film cameras at the time.

Back during my undergraduate days in the mid-80s, I did work on campus recording classes for distance learning onto 3/4" VCR tapes that were then sent to various companies where they would be viewed by a class made up entirely of employees.  After a period of time, they were returned, and the tapes were erased via Deguassing coil for reuse and to prevent anyone from viewing a class for free.  I would guess distance learning has changed considerably in the last 40 years as well. 😉

[George Jones]

My earliest memory of students taking pictures with mobiles is from 2006. I was teaching an electronics lab then, and students used their mobiles to take pictures of oscilloscope traces that they needed for their lab reports.