One of my primary uses of fountain pens will be to make notes while reviewing and re-learning the mathematics I studied a very long time ago (when fountain pens were the primary tool). Does anyone have any experience with this type of "writing"? I have yet to buy my first pen, or my first specialty paper. I am guessing that I will want a fine or extra fine nib, black ink, and smooth paper. I hope to travel to a specialty shop the first week in August and would appreciate any suggestions or comments that FPNers may have. As you can tell, I am very new to this, but am enjoying reading the many posts on this forum.

Well I am currently a 10th grade student, but this is during my summer break. Last school year, my math teacher made us use only pencil, no pen! Maybe this upcoming school year I can....Lamy 2000s and vintage Sheaffer's (what I write with on a regular basis) are great pens. Sheaffer's Skrip in black is very good ink, but I also like Bullet Proof Black ink by Noodler's. I don't know much about paper though.

Evan

I do a lot of math writing in my work, and for me, a true medium or a slightly generous fine on good non-feathering paper works best.

If it is for your own "consumption", use whatever works for your writing's size; for me, fine to xf is best as it allows me to squeeze larger equations onto a single line. I like darker (not necessarily black) non-feathering inks on narrowly lined paper.
However, if you will be submitting your work, you may need to use pencil. My professor for Real Analysis required all submitted proofs to be done in pencil.

I would guess that a hooded or semi-hooded nib would work best for you, since these are a little more resistant to drying out during pauses in writing. No idea whether you would prefer a fine or a medium nib, but I would guess that something on the fine side would be more suited to study. You really don't need a gold nib for this kind of work, but if you want to splurge that's your business.

Here are my suggestions, in line with the above:

Parker 51 aerometric (vintage)
Parker 45 (drawback -- the converter doesn't hold as much ink as other pens, and cartridges are more expensive than bottled ink)
Parker 61 capillary fill (vintage)
Hero 100 (drawback -- Chinese pen, quality varies -- if you don't want to buy from a Communist manufacturer, or if you have worries about problems with the pen, buy something else)

These first four have firm nibs.

You might want to consider the Lamy 2000. Holds lots of ink, but the nib is "soft" and they run a little wide.
Another one to consider is the Namiki Falcon. Also holds lots of ink, and also has a "soft" nib.

These latter two are significantly more expensive pens than the first four.

If you use Noodler's Black ink, you don't have to be as concerned about the paper quality (it was designed for use on newsprint, and of course is excellent on any paper of average or better quality).

I do most of my calculations at work in pencil, but I have to use pens in my labnotebook. I would recommend noodler's black and a fine point. Lab book paper is usually pretty quality so you don't have to worry about bleeding from too broad a point so you can also try a medium point. But for just fun calculations on engineering paper or graph paper, you should get a fine/extra fine point as that paper is usually thinner and of variable quality.

Yep 51, Lamy2000 or VP, all pens that are resistant to drying, if you get a VP from Richard Binder (go to his web site) he can do the nibs very very fine if that helps.
The Lamy 2000 and the P51 will hold the most ink, the Lamy even an EF will write the widest, the ink is up to you- although the P51 will probably be the most forgiving on this front and will take almost anything, the Lamy likes thicker inks (aurora black is good), have used visconti in my vp and it behaves well, however some like the cartridges that are black-have not tried them yet.
Have fun on the hunt.

Hi. I once took a degree in math, and used fountain pens almost exclusively, even on exams.

One thing I have noticed is that stark black can be fatiguing when staring at formulae and such. I found a mild blue ink more to my liking for math for this reason, although I prefer black when writing prose or sketching. I used to use Sheaffer's Skrip Royal Blue (I believe), but Waterman's Florida Blue looks pretty close and is supposed to be a safe ink.

Math is better with fountain pens!!

-andru

My two bits, if cost is not a major concern, go with the 51 Aerometric, join the collective, you won't be sorry. If cost is a concern, go with the 45, not a looker, but cheaper than the Hero 100, costs about the same as a Hero 616 (which I like better than the 100) including postage, and is smoother IF the nib hasn't been worn/damaged. JMHO.

andru wrote:

"One thing I have noticed is that stark black can be fatiguing when staring at formulae and such. I found a mild blue ink more to my liking for math for this reason, although I prefer black when writing prose or sketching. I used to use Sheaffer's Skrip Royal Blue (I believe), but Waterman's Florida Blue looks pretty close and is supposed to be a safe ink."

When your writing is for personal comsumptiom, I would use what ink allows you to focus on your work. I do not have a degree in math, but, while on active duty, the army in its wisdom assigned me to be a comptroller for four years. After I stared at black ink for a while, the little numbers started to undulate like flowing water and my concentration went to hell in a handbasket. I found that purple ink was best for my ability to concentrate on numbers. I was able to use blue-black for official presentations, and it was better than black for me.

As for an actual pen, I would suggest a Parker 51 with a F, EF or even an accountant nib (EEF?). I used a P-51 with an accountant nib and it worked like a charm. I would think a Japanese pen of your choosing with a Japanese size nib in EF or F would also help.

For what it's worth...

...When I am completing maths as preparation for lessons (or for fun - don't laugh!), I use Clairefontaine A4 grided, folded to form an A5 portrait booklet and then I use a fine nib with a dark turquoise like PR Naples or somesuch. This works best for me.

Hello!

I went through 4 year of undergraduate Mathematics in Greece (starting 1988) with a Cross century (ii?) and 5 years of post graduate work in maths with a Cross Townsend, both Fine nibs, and mostly used Montblanc Royal Blue.

Nowadays I have mostly stuck with fine nibs, widened ink range, but still blues (I currently use Penman sapphire, but Private reserve supershow blue is a dead ringer for it).

You may want to try an italic nib (1.1mm) on Lamy safari. This is not too expensive and will give you italics for the equations, but I find it a little bit too wide for normal writing. The pen itself is a workhorse, and for an inexpensive pen I strongly recommend it.

As for paper it took me years to realise that a binder with a loose leaf refill was the most efficient and cost effective option for writing as you don't have to deal with a "step" to a thick notebook and the ability to keep subjects together. Make sure you have more thant two holes to your paper though. You may want to have a look at the rollabind or ADOC line of notebooks. The latter in the UK have nice, if somewhat expensive paper refills.

Best of luck with your studies, and with your pen & paper search.

Dimitris

Thank you!

I am quickly beginning to see why this is such a popular Forum. The suggestions and comments are allowing me to at least walk into the store with a pruned tree of possibilities. My hands are itching to actually touch a few of these pens and see what kind of marks they leave, both on the paper and on me.


My wife is getting nervous. Twenty years ago she talked about buying me a small model train. That has grown into a hobby that has given me a tremendous amount of pleasure as I learned about table construction, electrical wiring (including something called DCC - Digital Command Control), plastic kit assembly (both rolling stock as well as buildings and scenery), operating procedures (both models and real) and history. My layout is HO scale and models the Canadian National Railway. Now I am beginning to talk about fountain pens ...


As andru mentioned, "math is better with fountain pens". I agree. The features that attracted me to mathematics are the same features that are appealing to me now as I enter the domain of fountain pens. It has something to do with beauty, and with the beauty of the process as much as with the product. I think mathematics education would be well-served by returning to the age of fountain pens. This is not to say that computers don't have an important role to play - they do, but we have lost the sense of personal commitment to aesthetics as part of the picture. And if fountain pens are worthwhile for mathematics, they are also worthwhile for other subjects. The idea is to create notebooks that are works of art. One should have a sense of pride in the trail that one leaves.

Once again thank you. I still have 8 days until I visit the store, but the sense of anticipation is incredible.

You guys are a lot better at math than me!

The most important part of my "math kit" is a large polymer eraser, so I can totally eradicate large swaths, and a mechanical eraser with a fine tip, to change small figures within expressions.

However, when I do use a fountain pen for math, it is a Pelikan 805 with a fine nib and Noodler's Black. That pen with that ink gives a consistent line with even color that is very easy to read.

I think the backside of the nib is worth thinking about for math. Every so often I like to turn the nib over to write small subscripts and the like. A Lamy 2000 is great for that. Mine has an F nib, but writes XXF turned over.

Scott

I really recomend graph paper in a grid size you can work with, as personal preference is important. Use the search on this website and you can find links/references to grid templates you can download so you can print your own, some even allow you to set your own grid size. This way you can choose your paper and color and not be so much at the mercy of suppliers. Also take a look at something call "Engineers Computation notebooks" at Staples or Office Depo.

Well, for me a pencil worked best as I stared at the equation and said "Huh?" a lot .

Really, I did use a fountain pen but I also had to restart them a lot. I learned to cap them as I thought about it all. But pencils really had their place.

Here's an ancillary question, does anyone have any recommendations for a compass that will use fountain pen ink? They'll all either clamp a pencil, or in some newer ones incorporate a mechanical pencil, but I only found one many years ago that had a dip pen nib. Alas, that was too many decades ago and I don't know where that compass is. Good chance I no longer have it. And I recall that it put out a rather broad line and you couldn't make much of a circle before the pen ran out of ink. The nib could be removed and turned over to reveal a more regular lead holder.

Plane geometry really gets you to doing the math rather than pushing around notational conventions.

Rotring compasses come with an adapter for their technical pens (they call them "Rapidographs", I think).

I just started a thread in the "Inky Thoughts" section on a good "not-too-wet" ink for writing mathematics, but there are certainly some ideas above. (I didn't see this thread first.)

I've been using an Inoxcrom pen for a while (I'm only just looking into all the other possibilities) and some El Cheapo ink cartridges but the combination has (I'm embarrased to say) been quite good! The Inoxcrom pen is not so expensive that I'm afraid to take it to lectures and the cartridges suit a student budget! They do fade after a semester though.

I just got a Waterman Phileas EF, though, so that may make life interesting. I've found Parker 45s to be quite good, but, as was pointed out, it seems to depend on the nib being smooth and not damaged/overused.

I do theoretical physics, and find that the ink/paper combo is more important than the particular pen/nib choice in terms of functionality (of course I do have my favorite pen as well). Basically, feathering is your main enemy.

Hmm, yes. I'm lucky that our exam scripts are written on a paper that works well with the inks I've used on it. I do occasionally come across "feathery" paper and it's not pretty.

P.S. I do theoretical physics too (as well as maths - joint honours)! Those tensor sub- and super-scripts are a nuisance with anything more than a fine nib...

Turn the nib over. Lamy 2000s are great for that kind of thing.

Scott

Those of us who prefer the modern formulation of Riemannian geometry (Levi-Civita connection on bundles) find the classical tensor formulation just horrid no matter what the nib.

Dave

Hey, what a coincidence, me too! Like, if I gas it on the downhill water bar and get big air, can I land it in time and keep enough traction to make the turn and avoid going over the edge and down the fall line into the bottomless ravine. Is this similar to your theoretical physics?

Why don't you gen one of those cheap calligraphy dip pens and fiddle around with the nib? Unless you're drawing a very large circle, I believe the nib and feed would hold plenty of ink. Saw down the wooden holder to size and, if necessary, make the grip large enough to fit in the pencil holder with weather stripping or something. Also they're cheap and so you don't have to worry so much about damaging it.

To answer the question about a FP for math, I always found a fine italic nib fit the bill well. I never had to write very fast when doing math or physics, so the nib didn't slow me down. Also, the greek letters look very nice written in itallic! Use whatever ink color you like, I suppose, but Noodler's waterproof black worked just fine for me.

Regarding nib size-- it depends on what sort of math you'll be writing. How many levels of subscripts and superscripts do you expect to use? I know one math student (whose research is in algebra) who uses a Pilot B nib; my research is in logic and I sometimes find my Pilot F nib to be too fat.

The nib (with the ink and your paper) sets the width of your pen stroke, and remember that the appropriate width depends on how large the letters you write are going to be. In ordinary writing, to test a pen you write out a sentence in your normal hand and see if the letters fit nicely within the your paper's rules. The problem with math writing is that in addition to ordinary letters you also have to make small symbols. So you have to split the difference.

I think that would be applied physics.

Stephen

To be sure, it's theoretical when I'm considering the proposition, but becomes applied when I do the face plant in the ravine bottom.

When preparing for the GMAT, which I recently took, I had to brush up on some math -- and acclimate myself to doing
problems in ink, since the materials provided during the test are laminated paper and a Staedtler wet-erase marker (of a refillable type). I chose to simulate this with my medium-point Pelikan M215 and my usual 4001 black ink on HP paper. The actual marker the day of the test started a little harder than my Pelikan, needless to say, but doing the problems with the M215 worked out very well for me in terms of comfort and legibility -- eons ahead of pencil.

Start simply.

Simple pen, basic ink, basic paper.

A good, simple pen is the Waterman Phileas.The fine point puts down a line somewhere between a fine and medium roller ball line. Simple materials, yet well made an interesting enough to the eye. Steel nib - every copy I have seen of which has written smoothly right out of the box. Easy to find, easy on the wallet - retails around $30-35 US in major office supply shops.

Basic ink. Parker, Waterman or Pelikan - black, blue or blue-black. Carts or bottle - both would work with the above pen.

Basic paper. The ubiquitous (in the US) Ampad legal pads, HP Multipurpose paper (it's what I use in my copier & printer). Mead Cambridge pads, Wilson Jones pads. Or just try what you have around the house.

You're out less than $50 US (maybe less than $30 or $40 if you find some sales and use paper you already have). Now you can play.

Now you can find what you like, what you don't like about the way fountain pens work, the way the ink behaves and the way it interacts with the paper. And you have a solid basic set of materials against which to compare everything else you encounter.


Greg