Related papers: The Need for Curriculum Updating in Physics Educat…
We introduce an approach to the foundations of physics that is more in line with the foundations of mathematics. The idea is to examine current theories and find a set of starting physical assumptions that are sufficient to rederive them,…
We describe the development of a junior-senior level course for Physics majors designed to teach Mathematica skills in support of their undergraduate coursework, but also to introduce students to modern research level results. Standard…
Recent decades have seen a rise in the use of physics methods to study different societal phenomena. This development has been due to physicists venturing outside of their traditional domains of interest, but also due to scientists from…
We discuss the fundamental principles underlying the current physical theories and the prospects of further improving their knowledge through experiments in space.
Learning to create, use, and evaluate models is a central element of becoming a scientist. In physics, we often begin an analysis of a complex system with highly simplified or toy models. In introductory physics classes, we tend to use them…
The decline in student interest in science and technology is a major concern in the western world. One approach to reversing this decline is to introduce modern physics concepts much earlier in the school curriculum. We have used the…
One of the major difficulties in learning physics is for students to develop a conceptual understanding of the core concepts of physics. Many authors have argued that student conceptions of basic physical phenomena are rooted in basic…
As it is well known, classical mechanics consists of several basic features like determinism, reductionism, completeness of knowledge and mechanicism. In this article the basic assumptions are discussed which underlie those features. It is…
Modern physics is founded on two mainstays: mathematical modelling and empirical verification. These two assumptions are prerequisite for the objectivity of scientific discourse. Here we show, however, that they are contradictory, leading…
The results of the National High School Examination (ENEM) are an important tool for a diagnosis of educational deficiencies at the end of a training cycle. This exam is a relevant source of data for the evaluation of what is learned by…
Physics is considered as one of the most prevailing and problematic subjects by the students in the realm of science. Students perceived physics as a difficult subject during high school days and become more evasive when they reach college.…
Writing is a critical skill for modern science, enabling collaboration, scientific discourse, public outreach, and more. Accordingly, it is important to consider how physicists and astronomers are trained to write. This study aims to…
In the present study we attempt to incorporate the philosophical dialogue about physical reality into the instructional process of quantum mechanics. Taking into account that both scientific realism and constructivism represent, on the…
The perspectives of introductory classical physics students can often negatively influence how those students later interpret quantum phenomena when taking an introductory course in modern physics. A detailed exploration of student…
Physics as a discipline embeds conceptual meaning about the physical world in mathematical formalism. The meaning associated with mathematical symbols depends on context, and physicists can shift conceptual meaning by manipulating those…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
What is physics? What are the limits of what physics can say about the world? In seeking ever-broader theoretical `umbrellas' for physical phenomena, we are seeking unifying principles. Emergent phenomena have turned out to be some of the…
We discuss a case study of the influence of epistemology on learning for a student in an introductory college physics course. An analysis of videotaped class work, written work, and interviews indicates that many of the student's…
Physics is formulated in terms of timeless classical mathematics. A formulation on the basis of intuitionist mathematics, built on time-evolving processes, would offer a perspective that is closer to our experience of physical reality.
Computational physics is a key part of what it means to do physics in the twenty-first century. However, upper division computational physics remains a largely understudied area. We set out to understand the experiences of students in an…