Recommendable (but I admit, I did not read the whole article)! Science in the margins!
"Marginalia, in the form of not just notes but scribbles, doodles, corrections, and illuminations, is by no means confined to the realm of mathematics. And while in the case of Fermat’s Last Theorem such additions to printed texts were a key impetus for beginning the study of a problem, in other cases, marginalia are equally integral to a problem’s solution. Such notes—appearing in books and offprints, on photographs and squeezes, and on notecards—transform what might seem like static artifacts into dynamic records of scholarly engagement. They document the history of how scholars have interpreted, connected, and published ideas throughout time and space, creating a multilayered conversation that can even stretch across millennia.
The Institute has its own intriguing collection of marginalia. Some give insight into the character and work of IAS scholars, while others offer a glimpse into Institute history. More still offer themselves as opportunities for understanding engagement with texts over time, particularly those within the rare books collection, which includes a notable edition of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolvtionibus orbium coelestium, libri VI. These inscriptions are a visual representation of both the solitary study and the conversations through paper that profoundly enrich scholarship at the Institute, and will continue to do so as scholars carry on the storied tradition of scribbling. ..."
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