Physics Education(DPE)
Enseignement de la physique (DEP)

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Arthur O. STINNER and Peter LOLY
University of Manitoba

Using the History of Science to Present the Evolution of Major Concepts in Physics

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We will present the rationale and give a description of two history of science courses that we have developed at the University of Manitoba. These are offered to physics as well as science education students. The first course discusses the major ideas and discoveries in science from the the Early Greeks to the beginning of the 19th century. The second course uses a thematic approach that traces the evolution of the periodic table from the early ideas of Dalton in the first decade of the 19th century, to the discovery of the neutron in 1932. Three phases of this development are, first, from Dalton’s atomic theory to Mendeleev periodic table , the second from Rutherford’s discovery of the nucleus and Moseley’s experiments to Bohr’s periodic table of 1922, and the third phase includes the ideas and discoveries of quantum mechanics and the discovery of the neutron. We will discuss the second course in detail. Our objective for these courses is twofold: to present the major ideas of physics in a historical and contextual way and to attract science students to consider science teaching through a two year post B.Sc program in education.