Men of Modern Mathematics: A History of Mathematics from 1000 to 1900

In 1961, the California Museum of Science and Industry debuted Mathematica: A World of Numbers... and Beyond, a kinetic and static exhibition of mathematical concepts designed by Charles and Ray Eames. Twenty years later, it opened down the street at the Museum of Science in Boston, where we’d visit it as kids. It’s still there. And, now, here, is the IBM-published poster that largely reproduces at timeline of mathematical history—and men. (Are there any women on there? Hold, please . . . There’s one: Emmy Noether.) Distributed as a giant perforated sheet that one is meant to separate so to turn into a 12-foot display of math men (and one woman), it’s a masterclass of information design and makes us wish we’d not been turned off by the price of a graphing calculator in the early 1990s when we wanted to double-major in math. Instead we just stuck with printmaking. An uncommon item that is massive and prone to destruction, this one is in uncommonly good shape.