A Typewritten Word
The profession of a typist, “a person who is employed for typing” (a dictionary entry), became a thing of the past. Although typists type fast (and in this sense they could be needed even today), they were replaced by speech recognition software which operates faster.
Some thirty or forty years ago, scientists could not do without typists (of course, if they were not lucky owners of a personal “Lyubava” typewriter or even of a “Robotron”). Manuscripts for submitting to journals or presenting to colleagues were sent for typing to a typing pool. Or to an old acquaintance, a typist, who usually took “extra work” home to earn some more money.
Simultaneously, one could type up to 5 copies depending on a typewriter brand. To do this, a piece of carbon paper, thin paper with dark substance on one side, was put in between paper sheets. To correct mistakes, one used correction fluid and then typed correct characters above.
Multicomponent physical formulae were added to typed articles in handwriting. There were also special typewriters for typing formulae (or interchangeable printheads for advanced imported typewriters).
In the photo: A typewriter and its expendable ink ribbon from the collection of the JINR Museum of Science and Technology; a typewritten paper from the Museum-Study of Bruno Pontecorvo at DLNP.
News of the laboratory
