Cultural Understanding of Physics: Instruments and Methods

Although nowadays sciences are considered to be extremely important for society, their human, profound aspect—the one touching human soul—is still missing. Sciences are, in fact, considered mainly for their utilitarian aspects. If we want physics to be truly considered cultural heritage of humankind, we must bring a deep, cultural vision of physics to all educational levels, promoting synergies with other areas of human knowledge. Here, we report the results of a symposium with different contributions in the research field of cultural understanding of physics. We start by discussing the relevance of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality for a cultural appropriation of physics. We proceed by suggesting experimental activities with digital tools to involve students in the design and construction of apparatuses including aspects, such as beauty, traditionally reserved for the humanities. We then present a large-spectrum, inter-disciplinary proposal concerning the opportunities given by discussing very different aspects, such as science vs religion, or Big Bang and biological evolution. Finally, we show the tangled links between physics and culture through the example of a historical-pedagogical reconstruction of the birth of quantum mechanics aimed at providing an epistemological and educational cultural framework for this theory.