Abstract
Introducing some fundamental concepts of quantum physics to high school students, and to their teachers, is a timely challenge. In this paper we describe ongoing research, in which a teaching–learning sequence for teaching quantum physics, whose inspiration comes from some of the fundamental papers about the quantum theory of radiation by Albert Einstein, is being developed. The reason for this choice goes back essentially to the fact that the roots of many subtle physical concepts, namely quanta, wave–particle duality and probability, were introduced for the first time in one of these papers, hence their study may represent a useful intermediate step towards tackling the final incarnation of these concepts in the full theory of quantum mechanics. An extended discussion of some elementary tools of statistical physics, mainly Boltzmann’s formula for entropy and statistical distributions, which are necessary but may be unfamiliar to the students, is included. This discussion can also be used independently to introduce some rudiments of statistical physics. In this case, part of the inspiration came from some of Einstein’s papers. We present preliminary, qualitative results obtained with both teachers and selected pupils from various high schools in southern Italy, in the course of several outreach activities. Although the proposal was only tested in this limited context for now, the preliminary results are very promising and they indicate that this proposal can be fruitfully employed for the task.
Highlights
The world around us is becoming increasingly more complex and technological, making basic scientific literacy essential for citizens
Since a very common misconception is that probability in quantum mechanics is due to instrumental limitations, just like probability in statistical physics, this aspect has to be properly emphasized in the course
We have described a teaching–learning sequence aimed at introducing high school teachers to some relevant concepts in quantum and statistical physics
Summary
The world around us is becoming increasingly more complex and technological, making basic scientific literacy essential for citizens. Apart from the mentioned issues, we recall that, historically, between the light quanta hypothesis of 1905 and Bohr’s atomic theory of 1913 (which is typically the next topic in courses), in 1909 there was the pivotal introduction by Einstein of the idea of wave–particle duality for light, which was again the result of a statistical reasoning applied to the black body radiation formula [12] (see [13]) , and it shows that both the wave and the particle nature of light (i.e., not just the latter) are necessary for accounting for the observed spectrum This brilliant paper is usually left out of curricula. After this discussion, which shows that this law is valid precisely when quantum effects are most evident, this should feel a bit less surprising In his 1905 paper [11], Einstein computed in an ingenious way the thermodynamic entropy associated with thermal radiation described by Wien’s distribution (3), and combined the result with the Boltzmann principle in order to understand its statistical origin. The computation involves ordinary thermodynamics and the integration of a logarithmic function, so it can be followed by students
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