Why this Japanese chalk is being hoarded by mathematicians

Chalk always works. If you see that your lecture hall has half a box of chalk, it is a known quantity. The failure mode of snapping in half still leaves you with largely functional writing implement.

If I’m teaching a class in a lecture hall with half a dozen markers left up at the board, who knows how many of those fuckers work. Always fun to have 200 students staring at you while you try to find a replacement for the marker that just crapped out on you, particularly since working ones tend to wander off leaving the ones that are crapping out behind.

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This is similar to my artist’s search for the perfect stick of compressed charcoal. Not too hard and slick like graphite, but not crumbly either.

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Whiteboard markers die very quickly and with little warning.
If you leave them on the whiteboard too long, they are hard to erase and will stain.
Eventually, they refuse to erase at all and your whiteboard is doomed.
Chalk goes away with a wet sponge.

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My Headmaster used to throw those little 1-unit 1cm wooden cubes (from Maths class). One day he hefted a 100-unit cube in his hand, the room went quiet, the troublemaking kid looked up, he put it down…

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No.
Unruly students get blackboard erasers thrown at them. Typically, the felt (or is it cotton?) ones with wooden handles have good heft for chucking. And they can be retrieved. Chalk is a valuable consumable, not to be wasted on merely chastising the unruly kids in class. And anyway, it bounces off them and does no damage.

Yes, I speak from experience, and yes, he had a remarkably good aim. Fortunately, I was alert and dodged it.

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Previously

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Where you in my class?

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I where not. It where only boyz. Were where you?

(Sorry. Open goal and all that)

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Fuck. Hoisted by my own autocorrect…

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Erasers at you.

Nun-propelled chalk at me.

To each his own.

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I use them, but I don’t care much for the plastic waste associated with them.

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It also has that shellac(?) coating on the handle.

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Nun chucks?

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All the things I thought I would do today reading the closing statement from a Japanese chalk making president was definitely never even conceived of but it was an interesting read

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There’s a lot of discussion of this chalk at my (mostly highly rated) MathOverflow question here.

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What’s fun is to cast fake ones out of plaster (complete with angles on the end) and leave them on the chalkboard lip. The screech they make when used is fabulous (from the other end of the building).

I’m just joking; I’ve never done this. But I’m working with plaster now, and this prank occurred to me. As something NOT to do.

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People get really attached to the tools of their trade. A bit like how some small minority of fiction writers are fanatically devoted to WordStar.

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There’s nothing quite like using good chalk on a slate board.

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Does it squeak?

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What, nuns?
Weird…

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