The Mathematical Sciences Institute is located in one of the newest, most modern buildings at ANU. 

And here, you’ll find a piece of technology found nowhere else on campus: blackboards. 

“There were a lot of discussions about what we wanted and didn’t want in this building,” says Associate Professor Pierre Portal.  

“That was the point that was absolutely consensual - no matter what the building ended up being, it had to have as many blackboards as possible.”  

It is, he says, “a funny quirk of mathematicians” to favour old-school blackboard and chalk over any more modern or high-tech alternative.  

“You’ll find very few mathematicians who will be willing to let go of that.”