Wow, that's actually deeper than it sounds. I do wonder though: did a lot of famous scientists (like Einstein, Feynman, Turing, etc) use writing as a vehicle for learning?
> “No, no!”, Feynman objected strongly.
> “They aren’t a record of my thinking process. They are my thinking process. I actually did the work on the paper.”
> “Well,” Weiner said, “The work was done in your head, but the record of it is still here.”
> “No, it’s not a record, not really. It’s working. You have to work on paper and this is the paper. Okay?”, Feynman explained.
Then we augment/externalized our short and long term memory from our minds with writing.
You'll always find a symbol covered napkin next to someone who's working out something difficult, without any writing paper.
A real inventor's notebook today has a space to sign and date each page, and you should X out any space you don't use. That helps it have legal force.
Could you elaborate on this point?
If you get into legal issues around patents, being able to prove when you made notes on something could be important.
Signing and dating each page helps demonstrate that you've been taking notes at specific times.
Crossing out the areas of the page that you don't use helps in case you get accused of deliberately leaving blank space in your notebook so you can backfill it later on a page that you already signed and dated.
Of course, this is predicated on the idea that you use pen and paper for notes! All of my notes have been digital for over a decade at this point.
https://www.amazon.com/BookFactory-Black-Inventors-Notebook-...
for example.
Notice some of the features: pages are sewn in, so it will be obvious if one is removed, tamper-evident archival paper, space to sign each page.
Paper documents I think still have the most standing as evidence.
This doesn't look like size for a full notary seal but space for a witness to sign. I suppose a notary could stamp it someplace.
There was space for a notary seal as well. I think the idea was to have it notarized once every so often so that the notary was affirming the date on the page, and that location of the X-ed out areas.
https://proftomcrick.com/2011/04/26/feynman-problem-solving-...
> 1. Write down the problem.
> 2. Think very hard.
> 3. Write down the answer.
The first step is crucial.
Albert Einstein
That said, people don't publish papers that are just math notation. There's surrounding words to explain and motivate concepts.