Dear Professor Benabou and all colleagues, At 10:46 PM 3/7/2010, you wrote:
Has the sorry time finally arrived when one can no longer work in Mathematics unless he knows TeX, LaTeX, and/or other sophisticated word processings? Should I, and many others it would be too long to name, stop doing mathematics?
I'd appreciate answers from all colleagues
For years I have been advocating the use of internet technology to allow mathematicians the use of ordinary handwriting and drawing on a single shared "virtual" sheet of paper. For example, I wrote "Science on a Napkin: Virtual Drawing is to Drawing as the Telephone is to Speaking" and made it available in 2007 for dowload at http://distancedrawing.com/Napkin071215a.pdf . Nowadays with Skype (currently free) and high-resolution digital video cameras (low-cost) I am certain a scheme can be worked out to achieve my goal of "distance drawing." But even short of a "single" shared piece of virtual paper, already my collaborator and I routinely share real-time video of each other's pads for free over Skype, and have enjoyed hours of technical conversation. There is no reason that mathematical material cannot be recorded by one or more mathematicians and distributed via the internet to subscribers -- with audio, handwritten equations, and diagrams -- in color. Ellis D. Cooper [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]