Hellenic Studies in History, Philosophy of Science and Science Teaching: New Perspectives

Abstract

This volume contains selected papers from the Third Hellenic Conference on ‘‘History, Philosophy of Science and Science Teaching’’ which was held in the central Amphitheatre of the National Hellenic Research Foundation September 19–22, 2005. The Conference was endorsed by the Hellenic Physical Society and was organized jointly by the Department of Education, University of Athens, and by the Program ‘‘History and Philosophy of Science’’ of the National Hellenic Research Foundation. International speakers were Fabio Bevilacqua and Michael Matthews, while invited speakers from Greek universities were: Stathis Psillos (Philosophy of Science, University of Athens), Efthymios Papademitriou (Philosophy of Nature, University of Ioannina), Menelaos Gkivalos (Epistemology, University of Athens) and Theodoros Christides (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Thessaly). The year 2005 was celebrated worldwide as the centennial anniversary of the ‘‘annus mirabilis’’ 1905, the year of publication of the Principle of Relativity by Albert Einstein. The year 2005 was celebrated worldwide as the world year of Physics and hundreds of ceremonials were organized to commemorate the event. In the framework of the 3rd Hellenic Conference two events were organized. First, a round-table discussion ‘‘Physicists discuss Einstein’’ with four prominent Physics teachers of secondary education, namely: Andreas Cassetas, Andreas Valadakis, Napoleon Papadopoulos and Panayiotis Skountzos. Second, a presentation of the CERN Educational Program ‘‘Master Classes in Particle Physics’’ by Prof. Nicholas Trakas of the School of Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences of the National Technical University of Athens. The CERN Educational Program is a European Initiative for popularizing Physics and aims to bring Physics closer to the general public and especially to young students in secondary schools in order to encourage them to acquire a positive attitude towards science. More than 120 participants attended the Conference and 45 papers were presented in two parallel sessions. Six papers were given by invited speakers while the rest 39 papers can be classified as follows: On the contribution of History of Science to Science Teaching (8 papers), on the Contribution of Philosophy of Science to the Educational Theory and