The blackboard is slowly slipping away but it wasnt all that long ago when there were passionate debates about the black vs the white board. Today the blackboard is loosing fast. The last bastions of blackboards can be found in the more technical universities (are engineers more conservative?), while the business schools have almost abandoned chalk forever (are they shallow & without history?)
An exhibition “Bye Bye Blackboard…from Einstein and Others” at the Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford has an exhibition of blackboards. The pride and joy being one preserved from a lecture given by Einstein in 1931.
Blackboards were wiped after use: they were meant for immediate communication, not for record. Even as they were being used, their messages were continuously revised, erased and renewed. But when Einstein came to Oxford in 1931, he was already an international celebrity. After one of his lectures a blackboard was preserved and has become a kind of relic. It is the most famous object in this Museum.