Re: [Phys-l] history of science

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 04/23/2011 02:23 PM, Krishna Chowdary wrote:
> this is for a team-taught interdisciplinary program that
> will be studying revolutions in physics and theater (and possibly
> music) in the early modern period (e.g. Galileo, Shakespeare) and in
> the early 20th century (relativity and QM for the physics). The
> program will be at the introductory and general education level.

This is almost certainly a bad idea, for a number of reasons.

I wish you well.  Along with lots of other folks, I would be 
delighted if you succeed, but it seems unlikely.  This has been 
tried thousands of times, and it always fails.  Maybe you have 
found the philosopher's stone that will allow it to succeed,
but it seems unlikely.

You can teach the history of science, or you can teach an
introductory course, but not both.

The introductory course should proceed step by step.  It should
be a simple, orderly, logical building-block process.  You violate
these principles at your peril.  Alas, the actual history was 
not simple nor orderly nor logical, and did not proceed step by 
step.  Hence the "revolutions".

There is no way students can appreciate revolutionary science 
before they know what non-revolutionary science looks like.
There is no way they can understand that QM was a revolutionary
departure from classical physics before they understand classical
physics.  There is no way they can understand how Beethoven or
Brahms broke the laws of classical music until they know what
the classical laws were.

The course description sounds like teaching beginners to swim
by throwing them into a maelstrom.

I'm all in favor of a course on the history of science, but it
must be considered an advanced course, open to those who already
understand science and already understand how history is done.