Pitfalls in the teaching of elementary particle physics
Physics Education
2018-11-16 v1
Abstract
Elementary particle physics is gradually implemented into science curricula at high school level. However, common presentations on educational, semi-technical or popular level contain or support severe misconceptions. We discuss in particular the notion of `particle', the interaction between them and the use of Feynman diagrams. In many cases the true novelty of particle physics (i.e. quantum field theory) is largely ignored. We also suggest reasons for this widespread distortions of particle physics in popular accounts.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1811.06230,
title = {Pitfalls in the teaching of elementary particle physics},
author = {Oliber Passon and Thomas Zügge and Johannes Grebe-Ellis},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.06230},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
24 pages, 1 figure