History of Ideas in Physics

Recommended Prerequisites

Training in Physics at the 1st cycle of studies.

Teaching Methods

The History of Ideas in Physics is presented as a human endeavor, resulting from the contribution of individual and scientific communities also reflect social and ethical concerns of a particular era. We will analyze some aspects of the development of instruments and experimental techniques ddos seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Through research activities result in the presentation of written and oral presentations. This strategy will foster interpersonal relationships and teamwork.

Learning Outcomes

This course aims to give an overview of the evolution of ideas in physics in its fundamental aspects, its organization, and to promote critical thinking about scientific development and its connection to the present.

Students who successfully complete the course will:

- Acquiring an effective understanding of the fundamental aspects related to the history of science and technology

- Understanding the complex dynamics of epistemological and cultural factors that contribute to changes in science.

- Know the primary and secondary sources of the History of Ideas in Physics

- Knowing the different means of dissemination of scientific ideas

- Relate the scientific with the social and technological aspects

- Use diverse resources of the History of Science in teaching strategies / learning

- Relate the development of ideas in physics with the evolution of teaching

- Treat historical documents and use them in an educational context.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. The Genesis of Science in Antiquity

2. Aspects of the development of ideas in physics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

3. Physical sciences in Portugal in the seventeenth century

4. The ideas in physics in scientific literature in the century of the Enlightenment

5. The Physical Mathematical Sciences in the context of education in the eighteenth and nineteenth

6. The evolution of scientific instruments in the eighteenth and nineteenth

7. Physics in Portugal in the eighteenth and nineteenth.

Head Lecturer(s)

Décio Ruivo Martins

Assessment Methods

Assessement
Synthesis work: 30.0%
Research work: 30.0%
Exam: 40.0%

Bibliography

Jefferson Hane Weaver: The world of physics : a small library of the literature of physics from antiquity to the present : 3 vols. New York : Simon and Schuster, 1987.

Lloyd Motz and Jefferson Hane Weaver. The concepts of science : from newton to Einstein. New York : Plenum Press, 1988.

Spencer R. Weart, Melba Phillips (eds).: History of physics. New York : American Institute of Physics, 1985.

Gerald Holton: Thematic origins of scientific thought : Kepler to Einstein. Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1988

Gerald Holton: Physics, the human adventure : from copernicus to Einstein and Beyond / Gerald Holton, Stephen G. Brush. London : Rutger University Press, 1985.

Taton, R. (ed), Histoire Generale des Sciences, P.U.F, Paris, 1983.

Arthur Berry: A short history of astronomy, from earliest times through the nineteenth century. New York : Dover Publications, 1961.

Edward Grant: Physical science in the midle ages. New York : John Wiley, 1971.