Doing math with fountain pens(6 things to know before)

Doing math with fountain pens is something that interests a lot of students or teachers. Hence in this article, we’re going to give the best things that students should know about fountain pen experience with mathematics.

Also, recommend the best 5 fountain pens for math students. So keep reading to choose your suitable pen.

Making diagrams with foutain pens is different

mathematics is a subject that requires form students to draw some diagrams and mathematics forms like squares, circles, and triangles. Doing this operation with a fountain pen is not easy and requires some special technics to use.

fountain pens have nibs, not like ballpoint pens, the clue thing about fountain pens is to keep them always in the correct position like this image below.

doing math with fountain pen

This makes a little bit of a challenge for mathematic students, rotating the nib more than 45 degrees from a right or a left cause flaws and discontinuity in writing. the fountain pen isn’t a pen to rotate it as you want.

So the key is to keep a pen horizontally with a paper line as you see above.

The second thing, is fountain pens are different for drawing straight lines or circles. Fountain pen nib operates well in a range of 90 degrees of utilization. Consequently, changing the nib head angle means changing the thickness of the line.

fountain pen nib draws thicker lines when the nib is fully in contact with a paper. The more you turn the nib the more the line gets finner.

This is the advantage of a fountain pen, it allows users to make thicker and finer lines at the same time. But for mathematics students, it requires some practice to get used to them especially for drawing straight lines along with rulers.

Writing mathematical equations with fountain pens

students say that when they feel themselves procrastinating on homework, they tend to use fountain pens. Fountain pens are smooth and allow students to write fluently their equations, numbers and solve hard integrals exercises.

80 % of mathematic students prefer to use between fine and extra-fine nibs. In other words, nibs sizes that vary between 0.4 and 0.6 mm. They don’t love to use large nibs like 1.1mm except for some artistic writings like calligraphy.

Students enjoy the crunchy faint sound that fountain pen produces while doing math. It gives the impression that fountain pens are scratchy, but the reality is totally different fountain pens are way smoother than students expect.

But the beautiful thing is working on math exercises with integrals, drawing this special line ∫ with a thicker 1.1mm safari nib. Some students prefer to use sheen colors like blue that appear read metallic.

foutain pen ink consumption for mathematical student?

According to the test durability that we made about fountain pens and calculations that we’ve made. We found that writing 400 words with a fountain pen costs $0.4, meaning $4 per 4000 words which is a costly and not good option for strong mathematicians. We didn’t include the other factors such as paper or ink quality.

So fountain pens are not recommended to work with for long hours, such as writing 20 pages or more. It is not recommended for students who prepare for exams when students use intensively pens. But for those who enjoy using them they have to be ready for a cost.

writing 20 pages in A5 paper will cost $8 of ink that student should spend, meaning $250 for a preparation session that lasts for a month.

But using 350ml bottle ink will be economic and reduce a lot of costs. The 400-word cost decreases to $0.12 meaning $1.2 for every 400 words. So one month of mathematics preparation will cost $72.

For this reason, fountain pens are only good for taking notes and doing some little activities.

Use two fountain pen inked with different color in math

For students who want to do math is better and recommended to use double fountain pens with different colors, one for writing and the other for correcting. Scribbling with the fountain pen is not a good idea it consumes ink and makes paper smudgy.

you can use blue and red colors for math, both are good. Blue and black are the famous and the most used colors in fountain pens.

It is a good idea, instead of scribbling drawing a straight red line would be tidy. This operation helps to reduce ink consumption and also prevents ink drying problems. Scribbling with a fountain pen will make the spot very wet and increase the drying time of the paper.

So at this time, when you will turn the page, the page will be stained and smudgy. Fountain pens take time to dry. In some cases, you could wait for 1 minute before you could turn the paper page.

Hence scribbling is forbidden with fountain pens. Especially doing math where the odd mistake is high to be produced.

Doing math with foutain pen require good quality paper

Writing with fountain pens has conditions it is not a pen to write anywhere or with any paper. A fountain pen requires specific quality of paper to write on. If a math student decides to do the math on a low-quality paper he will face a lot of problems.

The principal problem that most fountain pen beginners face using low-quality paper is bleeding and feathering.

Bleeding is like a pen dropping a lot of unexpectable ink quantity, this is due to the inability of the paper to absorb the big ink quantity that the nib provides.

you can watch this video below explaining widely these problems and recommend the best paper to choose using fountain pens.

A student who loves to use fountain pens is recommended to stick with finner nibs like 0.4 mm or 0.6 mm in case of using low-quality paper to prevent bleeding problems. Using broad nib requires having a good quality paper which could cost a little bit more.

5 best fountain pens for math students

Having a fountain pen for students is a different equation from other buyers. It might that other buyers have the capability to buy an expensive fountain pen, but students want something durable cheap, and give high-quality results.

The best 5 fountain pens that will recommend for math students are:

Pilot metropolitan $17

Is one of the best fountain pens for students who loves doing math with a fountain pen. It is durable for students, smooth and good for writing math equations and drawing different diagrams.

The best thing about metropolitan is they came with converters, meaning you could refill the ink pen directly from a bottle without spending money buying expensive cartridges.

The only flaw or disadvantage the pilot metropolitan has is it only comes with a medium nib. But it is still good and enough to take math notes or writings.

The last thing that math students should be aware of is the metropolitan cartridge aren’t transparent. That is to say, you won’t know how much ink is left in the pen, so you have to be aware to ne be stained with the ink.

you could watch this video to see how Pilot metropolitan is looking.


Lamy safari $25

The most popular and loved fountain pen is the Lamy safari. Lamy Safari is a great fountain pen for strict budget students to use especially for mathematics. It comes in different colors.

The Lamy safari comes with different nibs sizes which gives a variety of choices for students who want to do the math. the range varies between 0.3mm to 1.9mm and for people who love to do calligraphy math as in the video below.

The downside that Lamy has is that they don’t come with a cartridge. So you have to buy a new one that could cost $8 if you want to use economic ink bottles.


platinum preppy $7

platinum preppy is the cheapest fountain pen that math students could use for only $7 to spend. It cost as same as one cartridge piece. So it is affordable and at the reach for any mathematical student who loves to use a fountain pen.

The downside that platinum preppy has is, it needs to take care a little bit more. That is to say not press hard on it, because it can be cracked. But according to its price is still affordable and good recommendation for students.

you can watch this video to see more details about the platinum preppy.


Noodler flex pens $35

If you already have experience with fountain pens and want to upgrade on something a little bit better to do math with fountain pens we recommend using Noolder flex pen. it will cost a little bit more.

for $35 you should have better quality writing, but the downside of this pen is you have to use good paper quality to see the difference between the cheap fountain pen that we noticed above and this particular pen.

you could check this link on amazon.


Shaffer 100 $40

for people who look to quality at a reasonable price, the shaver 100 is a durable pen for students who wants to rise a level a little bit. it has a metal chrome body which makes it great against drops.

Is a good fountain pen for stylish mathematic students you could watch the details in the video below.

yassin.ajanif

Yassin ajanif is a physics graduate and electromechanical engineer width more than 5 years in the field. My goal and my team are to share our experience to help you succeed in your career as a stem major. we talk about all tips, problems, and struggle STEM students face in their career and how to overcome them.