UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN FACULTY OF

Ida Marie Monberg Hindsholm

Teaching H. C. Ørsted's Scientific Work in Danish High School Physics

Masterʹs thesis

Department of Science Education 19 July 2018 Master’s thesis Teaching H. C. Ørsted’s Scientific Work in Danish High School Physics

Submitted 19 July 2018

Author Ida Marie Monberg Hindsholm, B.Sc.

E-mail [email protected]

Departments Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen

Main supervisor Ricardo Avelar Sotomaior Karam, Associate Professor, Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen

Co-supervisor Steen Harle Hansen, Associate Professor, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

1 Contents

1 Introduction ...... 1 2 The Material: H. C. Ørsted’s Work ...... 3 2.1 The Life of Hans Christian Ørsted ...... 3 2.2 Ørsted’s Metaphysical Framework: The Dynamical Sys- tem...... 6 2.3 Ritter and the failure in Paris ...... 9 2.4 Ørsted’s work with acoustic and electric figures . . . . 12 2.5 The discovery of ...... 16 2.6 What I Use for the Teaching Sequence ...... 19 3 Didactic Theory ...... 20 3.1 Constructivist teaching ...... 20 3.2 Inquiry Teaching ...... 22 3.3 HIPST ...... 24 4 The Purpose and Design of the Teaching Sequence ...... 27 4.1 Factual details and lesson plan ...... 28 5 Analysis of Transcripts and Writings ...... 40 5.1 Method of Analysis ...... 40 5.2 Practical Problems ...... 41 5.3 Reading Original Ørsted’s Texts ...... 42 5.4 Inquiry and Experiments ...... 43 5.5 ”Role play” - Thinking like Ørsted ...... 48 5.6 The Reflection Corner ...... 51 5.7 Evaluation: The Learning Objectives ...... 53 5.8 Advice for designing a sequence on HPS ...... 58 6 Discussion: Is Teaching HPS a Relevant Option in Danish High School Physics? ...... 60 6.1 My own Results ...... 61 6.2 The Inclusion of HPS in High School Physics ...... 63 7 Conclusion ...... 66

2 Appendices 73

A Writing Exercise 74

B Text about Ørsted’s Dynamic System 75

C Experimental Guide: Voltaic Battery 77

D Ørsted’s Aesthetic 80

E Experimental Guide: and the Magnetic Needle 81

F Transcription of the Lessons 83

G Answers to Writing Exercises 111

3 Abstract

There is an apparent paradox in the way the history and philosophy of science (HPS) is viewed in science teaching: On one hand it is supported by research as a central approach to teaching methodology and nature of science (NoS), but on the other hand there is very little actual implementation of HPS in science teaching on all levels. This master project is a case study in developing and teaching an HPS sequence to a Danish high school physics class, in order to find the central obstacles and advantages that this approach has. The aim of the sequence is to shift focus in physics teaching from facts and finished models to science as a process, and thereby to teach the students a more nuanced view on how scientific knowledge is created. The theoretical basis is a constructivist view on learning and an inquiry based approach to experiments. The project is inspired by the results and strategies of a large European research project on HPS (HIPST) and uses concrete strategies from this project, where emphasis is laid on experimental work, reconstruction of historical apparatus, and interpreting data in rela- tion to a specific philosophical framework. I have chosen the case of H. C. Ørsted’s scientific work as content, focusing on his experimental work and metaphysical ideas about electricity. H. C. Ørsted was guided by romanti- cism and Naturphilosophie in all of his scientific research, and through his career he experienced failures and mistakes before his great success in dis- covering electromagnetism, which makes him very suitable for the aim of my sequence. I have undertaken a qualitative analysis of transcripts of the lessons and of open writing exercises given to the students before and after the sequence. Based on the results from this I conclude that the overall idea of using HPS to teach about the NoS aspects is fully applicable and that the strategies presented by HIPST were mostly effective for the students’ learning and reflection about science. A point to be improved in future use of the sequence was that it did not stress the importance of mathematical descriptions in science. In the end, I discuss how HPS can play a bigger role in Danish high school teaching in general. The main suggestion is that the curriculum could support this more fully by presenting ideas for concrete implementation of HPS. 1 Introduction

In Denmark as well as in most European countries, history and philosophy of science (HPS) is not a field that takes up a lot of space in high school cur- ricula and textbooks. According to larger studies in this area (see H¨ottecke and Silva 2011 [1]) there are several reasons for this, many of which relate to tradition and subject culture: Many science teachers have never been edu- cated in HPS, and they tend to view it as a peripheral part of their subject that should not take time from the modern factual explanations of specific scientific phenomena. There are, however, according to research in didactics important things to be gained from implementing a historic and philosophic view in science teaching. Many researchers in science education have argued (see for instance [2–4]) that HPS is a fruitful approach to teaching and learning about the aspects of science that are not hard facts and mathematical models, but related to processes and methodology. And recently the European project HIPST (History and Philosophy in Science Teaching) has aimed at providing research based tools and teaching material in the field of HPS through several case studies in 8 different countries. The project presented in this thesis is a case study inspired by HIPST. I have developed and tested a teaching sequence about the scientific work of Hans Christian Ørsted to a b-level physics class in high school, in order to examine the central obstacles and advantages that this approach has in physics teaching. The sequence is centred around the question: How is scien- tific knowledge created?. The students have reflected on this general question through repetition and interpretation of H. C. Ørsted’s most important ex- periments, with the objective of giving them a more nuanced understanding of the scientific process and methodology - especially in physics. The hope is that the students after the sequence will view physics not as the collection of facts and finished models that they are often presented to in class, but also as a process. A process of mistakes and blind-alleys which is constantly interacting with society and culture. Based on the results from HIPST I propose the idea that a historic case study is an effective way to study these aspects of physics which are all related to what is often called ”the nature of science” (NoS). From a constructivist perspective, scientists and students are in similar situations: They want to discover a certain knowledge which is often related to a specific problem. But traditional content focused teaching (in the worst case) tends to give the final answer to the problem before the students have had a chance of discovering anything. Instead they are left to do ”cookbook” experiments where they follow a given procedure to obtain a knowledge they had already

1 been told beforehand. This way they learn nothing about how the scientific process actually works, and the school subject becomes very different to the research subject. As opposed to this approach, the historic case study shows the process of scientific discovery and even lets the students participate in it as they follow in the tracks of a working scientist. The choice of H.C. Ørsted as case has several reasons. Firstly, he is an example of a scientist who was devoted to a very specific philosophical viewpoint (romanticism) which guided him in all of his research and was perhaps the cause of both his biggest mistakes and his main achievement of discovering electromagnetism. This makes him suitable for studying the relationship between science and culture as well as the important roles of mistakes in physics. Secondly he is one of the most famous Danes worldwide but at the same time he is rather underexposed in Danish culture and most people know nothing about him apart from his discovery of electromagnetism. Thirdly, his experiments are not technically challenging and do not demand rare equipment which make them easy to repeat with the students. Apart from this he was simply a fascinating character who viewed science and the physical world in a way which seems extremely strange today, but did turn out to be very productive anyway. In my design of the teaching sequence I intend to incorporate these central aspects of Ørsted’s work in student centred activities such as group discus- sions, experimenting and reading of Ørsted’s original publications. My basic viewpoint in this design is constructivism as an approach to describe and understand the learning process. More specifically this means that I have used different inquiry-strategies in my design and focused on activities that allow the students to generate their own knowledge through interaction with didactical milieu. In this thesis I start out by presenting Ørsted’s philosophy and work in section 2 since it is the foundation of the material and probably not very well known by most physics teachers. In section 3 I describe constructivism and the inquiry approach to learning, followed by an introduction to the more concrete strategies proposed by the HIPST project. In section 4 I provide a detailed overview of the purpose and design of the sequence lesson by lesson, including the didactic considerations. In the analysis, section 5, I assess to what degree the learning goals have been obtained, through analysis of transcripts from the lessons and students’ answers to writing exercises before and after the sequence. In the final section 6, I use my results to discuss the general challenges and advantages of implementing HPS and the HIPST strategy in Danish high school teaching in general.

2 2 The Material: H. C. Ørsted’s Work

Since the work and philosophy of Hans Christian Ørsted is rather unknown territory for most physics teachers, it is relevant to provide an overview of the material that this case study will be centred about. In this section I present a general introduction to Hans Christian Ørsted and his scientific works, focusing on the specific historical incidents, philosophical concepts and experiments that I want to introduce to the students in the teaching sequence. Hans Christian Ørsted (1777-1851) was a fascinating character who com- bined work from many different fields that we today tend to keep clearly separated. He was a brilliant physicist and chemist who became world fa- mous for his discovery of the interaction between electricity and - a key step in the process of unifying the forces of nature. In addition to this he was one of the main cultural figures in the era of Danish history known as The Golden Age. When he was not experimenting with scientific phenomena such as sound, electricity and pressure, he wrote philosophical essays and literary critique for the most prominent journals. He also published poetry of his own, and he is the inventor of many danish words that are still in use today.1 Looking deeper into Ørsted’s writings it quickly becomes clear that these different fields of science and culture are not isolated parallel tracks in Ørsteds work. On the contrary they are all deeply interwoven aspects of the same unifying philosophy that led Ørsted in all of his research. And it would be impossible to understand the way to the discovery of electromagnetism without looking deeper into this philosophical framework. In the following sections I will try to show this by presenting the most important parts of the young Ørsted’s work. In the next section I provide a short biographical overview and then I will present a more thorough explanation of Ørsted’s general philosophy in section 2.2, of his scientific cooperation with Johann Ritter in section 2.3 and of his works with acoustic and electric figures in section 2.4.

2.1 The Life of Hans Christian Ørsted Hans Christian Ørsted grew up as the oldest son of a pharmacist in the small Danish town Rudkøbing where his father owned an apothecary. Already as a child Ørsted took great interest in as he helped his father

1such as sommerfugl, tankeeksperiment, ildsjæl og rumfang, the danish words for but- terfly, thought experiment, devotee and volume.

3 with the pharmaceutical work. Growing up Hans Christian and his brother Anders Sandøe, who later became a prominent jurist and politician, received a thorough private education of language, geography, history and religion [5, chapter 2]. Being taught by a theologically interested german wig maker, Ørsted became from an early age acquainted with some of the great religious thinkers of the European enlightenment movement whose views on reason in religion seem to have affected Ørsted throughout his life [6]. In 1794 Ørsted moved to Copenhagen to study pharmacy as the study of chemistry and physics was not yet established at the University of Copen- hagen (Ørsted himself actually became the first Danish professor in both these subjects in 1817). In Copenhagen Ørsted made many connections in academia and befriended some of the most prominent Danish cultural figures of the years to come, but most importantly he got the chance to expand his philosophical knowledge as he began an intensive study of Immanuel Kant’s metaphysics which he wrote a doctoral thesis about in 1799 [5, chapter 4-8]. As I will explain in the following section, the study of Kantian metaphysics was to be the basis of Ørsted’s own dynamic view of nature. In 1801-02 Ørsted made his first journey abroad visiting the cultural capitals of Europe. In Jena he became acquainted with the new romantic movement of Naturphilosophie which was just gaining momentum in German speaking countries. Here Ørsted read and met with some of the greatest romantic philosophers and writers such as Goethe, J.G. Fichte and F.W.J. Schelling who all took great interest in natural science. From Ørsted’s letters at the time it is obvious that these writers affected him and his view of nature profoundly - which can also be seen in his works from the following years [5, chapter 11]. When Ørsted returned to Copenhagen in 1804, he could begin a life of experimenting and lecturing in a city that was economically beaten but cul- turally flourishing with the new romantic movement. It was the beginning of The Golden Age and the interest in academia and science was growing fast, allowing Ørsted to live off of the income from private lectures until he got his first professorship in 1806. In these and the following years Ørsted established himself as a prominent public voice and literary critic while si- multaneously conducting important research on some of the hot topics of physics and chemistry such as light, acoustics and, perhaps hottest of them all, electricity [5, 7]. The first source of constant , the invented by , had been presented in 1800 and since then, the scientific world had been engaged in explaining the concept of electricity. The voltaic pile is a battery comprised of layers of two different (e.g. and ) stacked in a pillar and separated by pieces of cardboard soaked in some kind of (- or acid), as shown in figure 1 [8].

4 The zinc acts as and the copper as and the pile works like a series connection. At the surface of the zinc disc, Zn is oxidised to Zn++ by the electrolyte, and two are left in the . When a wire is attached from one end of the column to the other these electrons travel towards the copper end, generating a direct current. At the copper surface the excess electrons are accepted by from the electrolyte. In electro-chemical notation the process can be described as:

++ + Zn(s)|Zn ||2H |H2|Cu (1) Ørsted experimented eagerly with both and the voltaic pile (he even developed his own version of it) and tried to find traces of electricity in all of nature (see section 2.4).

Figure 1: Left: Schematic representation of the voltaic pile showing the two -discs stacked with cardboard discs soaked in an electrolyte such as salt water between them. At the anode (zinc) a reduction takes place as zinc is dissolved to positive zinc-ions. The remaining electrons travel through the wire to the cathode (copper) where a reduction takes place and the electrons + combine with H ions to create H2. Right: A drawing from the 19th century depicting the voltaic pile as it was built at Ørsted’s time.

5 It was not, however, until April 1820 that he decided to try what was to become his most famous experiment during a lecture at the university: He found that the current in the wire connected to the voltaic battery affected the orientation of a compass needle. This discovery opened up a whole new branch of research for scientists everywhere leading to Amp`ere’stheory of electrodynamics and Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction in the following years [9, chapter 1]. Ørsted himself however did not continue much with electromagnetic re- search after this. He instead devoted himself to the foundation of the Danish technical university and other more political work, while his scientific focus gradually shifted to the subject of gasses and liquids and their compressibil- ity. In this field he made significant contributions to the understanding of water’s behaviour under pressure. He never gave up his romantic conviction though, and stayed true to his metaphysical world view through the rest of his life.

2.2 Ørsted’s Metaphysical Framework: The Dynami- cal System Though Ørsted’s scientific work is spread over many fields, it is not without coherence. On the contrary, all of Ørsted’s research is linked by his ambition to prove a metaphysical idea which he called ”the dynamical system”. With inspiration from Kant and the romanticists Ørsted’s theory of the world was based on seeing the symmetry of two basic natural forces which originated from one primordial force or ”Urkraft”. Ørsted lived in a time of changing paradigms, and in accordance with this, his dynamical system is an interesting combination of critical philosophy from the enlightenment movement and the unity philosophy of romanticism. He found his first inspiration in Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) which he read in the late 1790’s. The book presents Kant’s understanding of natural science, the physical world and what we can know about it [7]. According to Kant, we can only recognize the world by combining our reason and thought with sensory inputs; reasoning and sensing are both worthless alone when it comes to understanding nature. Based on this there are two things we can conclude about matter: 1) When we try to push through it, we are stopped, so the matter has a repulsive force, and 2) since it is not expanding into the space around it, matter must also have an attractive force. In Kant’s view this interaction between repulsive and attractive forces is what constitutes matter - not atoms which were merely theoretical entities

6 with no direct influence on the senses [5, chapter 8]. Ørsted accepted Kant’s dynamical theory of matter. He rejected atomism in favour of a system of basic forces that could be derived form a priori ”first principles” combined with experience from the physical world. But unlike Kant, Ørsted had become inclined not to the theory on a plurality of logical first principles, but rather on one single, unconditioned first principle or ”Urkraft” that unifies all of nature: ”He [Ørsted] had become deeply committed to a worldview in which nature was understood as a universally connected, continually active, living, divine creation filled with polar forces in relative degrees of conflict and equilibrium” [7]. In short, a worldview inspired by romantic Naturphilosophie and especially Friedrich Schelling. The romantic movement was just beginning to spread from the German university town Jena where a group of young intellectuals had developed a radically new view of nature that challenged the reason-based, mathematical approach characteristic of the enlightenment movement. Through the 18. century, the centre of natural science had been Paris where great scientist like Laplace, Lavoisier, and Biot researched nature from an empirical, atomistic, mechanical and mathematical point of view. In this paradigm all matter (and most natural phenomena) was explained by atomic particles; small undividable entities that affect each other mechanically like Newton had shown for larger objects [9]. While this view was very fruitful in some aspects, it had not succeeded in explaining more diffuse aspects such as light, heat, magnetism and electricity (see section 2.5). The romanticists from Jena had a profoundly different approach. Led by the writers Ludwig Tieck, Novalis, the brothers Schlegel, and the philosophers Schelling and J. G. Fichte, they promoted a worldview founded in unity: Unity of mind and nature and unity of the natural phenomena. Schelling described, in his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature from 1797, the cosmos as one integrated organism, determined by the dialectical interactions of a few basic Grundkr¨afte which are rooted in a single first principle: ”The world soul”. Schelling rejected the atomic and mechanistic view of matter as fragmented and dualistic (and therefore philosophically meaningless), as it did not allow an integrated understanding of mind, soul and matter, but rather separated the world in the spiritual and the material. And according to Schelling, the key to a new philosophically coherent view of nature was to be found in the most recent discoveries regarding electricity and the way they were interpreted by romantic scientists such as Ritter [7]. There is no doubt that Ørsted was deeply affected by Schelling’s ideas on nature and science when he developed his dynamical system, and his ideas of harmony, unity and the interactions of the Grundkr¨afte are very similar to Schelling’s. He did, however, criticize Schelling for his lack of interest in

7 scientific research and field work. For Ørsted it was crucial for every the- ory of nature that it could be proven through systematic experiments, and he believed that any theory about nature that was not founded in observa- tions was virtually pointless [5, p. 214-19]. In this way it can be said that Ørsted scientifically and philosophically had a foot in two camps: He valued measuring and experimenting as highly as metaphysics. Ørsted’s own dynamical system pervades almost everything he has writ- ten since 1800; from his investigations in acoustic figures to the experiments with the compressibility of water. Yet it is not easy to find one text that summarises the whole of the theory in concrete and detailed terms, as Ørsted often tended to explain his metaphysics in rather broad and vague terms [7]. His main theoretical scientific work View of the Chemical Laws of Nature from 1812 [10] and the more generally philosophical book The Soul in Na- ture (1850, in English 1852) are the best sources. Both books present a harmonic unifying worldview similar to Schelling’s. Chemical Laws explains how the world is made up of two opposing Grund- kr¨afte in eternal conflict, seeking equilibrium. These basic forces express themselves everywhere in nature: Positive and negative electricity, the two poles of the , the poles of the earth, night and day, cold and warmth, and so on. Every part of every physical body contains these two fundamen- tal forces of nature, and when they are in equilibrium nothing happens. But when something disturbs the equilibrium of a body (for instance a conductor connected to the voltaic pile), different kinds of activity (for instance electri- cal activity) will occur as both forces try to dominate the body in question until a new equilibrium is reached.2. Andrew Jackson writes in his introduction to Selected Scientific Works: ”The principle of progressive dialectical conflict and resolution was accepted by Ørsted as one of the truly fundamental universal laws of nature” [7]. The opposing principle of the forces seems dualistic on the surface, but Ørsted explains that this is quite wrong since the two Grundkr¨afte are basically two aspects of one single primordial force or Urkraft. This force is the first principle, the a priori reason in nature or in Schelling’s words, the world-soul. As the title of the book The Soul in Nature indicates, Ørsted agreed with Schelling that the great organism of cosmos has a soul. In Ørsted’s words this soul is ”Nature’s own reason”, an omnipotent, eternal reason that connects the human reason to nature. In other, simpler words: It is God - or at least God’s will manifested as the laws of nature. To Ørsted this first principle

2Ørsted never expressed this conflict mathematically, but detailed qualitative descrip- tions of the process can be found in the article ”On the Manner in Which Electricity Is Transmitted” from 1805 (to be found in Selected Scientific Works).

8 is the reason why humans can grasp nature and describe it mathematically: Because our mind is pervaded by the same divine reason that produces and determines nature. In that respect, the work of the scientist becomes a kind of service to God. By exploring nature we explore the rules of the divine reason and first principle. As Ørsted puts it: We [seek] to confirm our conviction of the harmony between reli- gion and science, by contemplating how the man of science, if he fully understands his own endeavours, must regard the pursuit of science as an exercise of religion [11] It is not an overstatement that most of Ørsted’s work is dedicated to finding proof of this dynamical system, and therefore none of the experi- ments described in the following sections can be fully understood without the awareness of this theory.

2.3 Ritter and the failure in Paris Ørsted drew inspiration from several German natural philosophers, but one of them meant more to him than just philosophical inspiration. This man was (1776-1810) whom Ørsted met for the first time in Jena in 1801 after having studied his work for years. After a few weeks of working together Ritter was not only Ørsted’s partner in science but also his close personal friend [5, chapter 12]. In this section I will describe the relationship of the two scientists focusing mainly on Ørsted’s presentation of Ritter’s work to the French national institute, as he tried to win Ritter the Napoleon Price for galvanic experiments - which ultimately implied big consequences for Ørsted himself. It is not too difficult to guess why Ørsted was fascinated with Ritter. Rit- ter was of course a talented scientist who had conducted a lot of research into galvanism (this was an often used term for chemically produced electricity at the time). He had discovered the existence of ultraviolet light and proved that it had chemical properties, and he had been among the first to publish results on the voltaic battery’s ability to produce and hydrogen from water. But what was really interesting to Ørsted was probably the way Rit- ter interpreted these results, as Ritter was one of the few scientists at that time who was not committed to a fluid theory of electricity. He instead held a romantic view of nature, inspired by Kant, in which electricity is explained by the grundkr¨afte, and he tried with his experiments to prove this notion. In that way Ritter was, unlike for instance Schelling, one of the few romanti- cists who combined romantic natural philosophy with scientific experiments - much like Ørsted himself [5, p. 140-151].

9 Ritter and Ørsted worked together for several weeks in Jena where they exchanged ideas and research with each other and they kept in close contact the following months. In 1803 their work together culminated as Ørsted went to Paris to present Ritter’s work to the commission of the Napoleon Price on galvanism. Ritter himself did not have the funds to go to Paris, and for the young Ørsted it probably seemed like a good career move to be able present Ritter’s ideas to prominent scientists of the commission such as Laplace, Coulomb and Biot. These scientists were all firm believers of atomism and the fluid theory of electricity (which I return to in section 2.5), but Ørsted wanted to show them his force-based theory. Ritter’s experiments were all about the subject that interested Ørsted the most: The galvanic electricity and its relation to magnetism. As far as we know this was Ørsted’s first public attempt to establish a connection between the two phenomena which makes the episode extra interesting when trying to follow the way to the discovery of electromagnetism. Ørsted gave his presentation on September 4, 1803 at the National In- stitute in Paris where he conducted experiments that Ritter had sent him detailed descriptions of, and which Ørsted had tested himself. Ørsted’s let- ters to Ritter has disappeared but Ritter’s letters to Ørsted still exist. From them most of the information about the work leading up to the presentation can be gathered [5, chapter 15]. A detailed description of what happened at the presentation itself can be found in the minute from the meeting which is published in the collection of Ørsted’s scientific writings from 1920 [12, p. 232-233]. Ørsted and Ritter had decided to focus the representation on Ritter’s in- vention, the storage column. This column, which looked like the voltaic pile, was a kind of , and when connected to a voltaic pile it could accu- mulate charge and keep it for a few hours. But contrary to most it involved an electrolyte, as it consisted of a number of copper discs stacked in a column with paper discs soaked in salt water between each copper disc, see figure 2 [13]. The column provided 0.3 pr. cell and was undoubtedly a new and interesting invention for research in electrodynamics. And Biot, who had invited Ørsted to come and present it, had almost promised that Ritter would win the price based on this invention [16]. Unfortunately Ritter did not stop at the storage column. He wanted to use this invention to show something of far greater importance: That the earth has electric poles as well as magnetic ones. Ritter stated that the uncharged column became positively charged at the top and negatively on the bottom only by suspending in air in the direction of NNE-SSW at a certain angle with respect to the horizon [16]. We know from Ritter’s letters that he and Ørsted had discussed the ex-

10 Figure 2: A remake of Ritter’s storage column made by Dr. Heiko Weber at the University of Jena. This column was made of 50 copper discs with card- board soaked in salt-water between them which results in 50 cells connected in series. The column is charged by connecting it to the voltaic pile and afterwards it delivered about 0.3 V pr. cell [13]. The column was probably the worlds first and is seen as the forerunner of the lead-acid battery [14, chapter 1], [15, p.566]. istence of such electric poles, and that they both believed to have observed how a needle with one end made of and the other made of zinc (a gal- vanic compass, so to speak) would align with these poles as well. But, as we know today, these poles do not exist, and therefore Ørsted failed completely when trying to repeat this experiment in front of the commission. Ritter did not win the price, and Ørsted never mentioned the price again in his letters to Danish friends and family. Shortly after this incident he returned to Copenhagen [5, chapter 15]. Why Ørsted believed Ritter’s results so wholeheartedly, we do not know. But we can guess that the reasons might include his young age, his personal friendship with Ritter and his own firm belief that the earth indeed has electric poles (which he apparently still believed years later when writing ”On the Harmony Between Electrical Figures and Organic Forms” [17]). We do know, however, that as he grew older he admitted to having been carried away a bit by Ritter’s ideas. As Ørsted wrote in his short autobiography:

”Although the experiments in which Ørsted took part were not especially suited to give him full confidence in the results derived from them, he relied all the more on the whole series of exper-

11 iments made by Ritter, and it was not until several years later that he convinced himself of their inaccuracy by the repeated experiments of himself and others.” [18]

What is interesting about this scientific failure is the role it might have played for Ørsted’s future scientific work and publications. Did it make him more cautious or change the way he worked?

2.4 Ørsted’s work with acoustic and electric figures When Ørsted returned to Copenhagen after his failure in Paris, he did not give up working with electricity and looking for its connections to other fields of science. Two scientific phenomena that especially caught his interest in this regard were G. C. Lichtenberg’s electric figures and Ernst Chladni’s acoustic figures both of which Ørsted invested much time in researching. The Lichtenberg figures, invented by G. C. Lichtenberg in 1777, are pat- terns that arise when an electric discharge spreads on an insulating plate. The patterns generally have branching, organic looking forms and arise in a fashion similar to that of a dielectrical breakdown. They were produced by placing a nail or another conducting piece of metal to the surface of a insu- lating plate of for instance resin or glass. A high source, such as a Leyden jar or an electrophorus, was connected to the needle, and the charge would spread over the surface in branching structures which are revealed when a fine powder is strewn on the surface as it is attracted to the charged areas, see figure 3. If the plate is positively charged, the pattern consist of branches radiating in all directions. Negatively charged areas create smaller patterns, and have a sharp circular form without branches. In 1805 Ørsted published an essay on the meaning of these figures called ”On the Harmony Between Electrical Figures And Organic Forms” in which he gave the figures a very central role in his world view: ”These symbols undoubtedly deserve our fullest attention for they reappear everywhere, and who knows whether all of Nature’s mathematics does not lie hidden in them!” [17]. The method of this essay is the analogy. Ørsted took the electric patterns to be the fundamental forms of nature because he saw a plethora of polar symmetrical phenomena that resembled the patterns in all of nature: The branches of vegetation, the veins of animals. And he connected the positive and negative electricity and their ability to produce oxygen and hydrogen from water to photosynthesis and light and thereby to most of the big oppositions in nature: Day and night, summer and winter, north and south, male and female. From these analogies he concluded that the ”electro-chemical process is the formative process [of nature]” [17] and that

12 this process is reducible to the conflict of the electrical Grundkr¨afte; the attractive and repulsive forces. It is quite clear that this text is very much inspired from Schelling who also worked with the geometrical properties of natures forces [7, p. xxxi] but this essay also shows important features of Ørsted’s own view of the world in which coherence, unity and harmony are the main characteristics of a nature formed by the forces of electricity, magnetism and light.

Figure 3: Two of the original figures from Lichtenbergs paper De Nova Methodo Naturam Ac Motum Fluidi Electrici Investigandi, 1778. The fig- ures arise when charge spreads on a dusted insulating surface. To the left a figure made with positive charge, to the right a figure made with negative charge.

Ørsted’s aim to reveal the existence and coherence of the forces of nature from the geometric properties of scientific phenomena was continued in his research on acoustic figures. The Chladni figures are the patterns created in sand or dust on a metal or glass plate when this plate is stroked with a violin bow to create acoustic vibrations - as seen in figure 4 (see section 4 for a more thorough explanation of the procedure). This technique was developed by Ernst Chladni in the 1780’s, but Ørsted refined this method by changing the sand into the much lighter lycopodium powder so that the movement of each little grain of dust was revealed. This allowed him to do a very thorough and methodically systematic description of the way these patterns were created which he published in 1810 after years of research [19]. The Chladni figures are really analogous to standing waves on a string but in two dimensions. They are a solution to the 2-dimensional wave equation:

13 Figure 4: Chladni Figures produced by Ørsted and presented in his article ”Experiments on Acoustic Figures” [19]. A metal plate with free edges, supported from underneath and strewn with a fine powder is stroked firmly with a violin bow at the edge to generate resonance frequencies. When this happens, a loud tone is heard and the dust gathers in patterns along the nodal lines. The patterns are solutions to eq. 2.

∂2U(x, y, t) ∂2U(x, y, t) 1 ∂2U(x, y, t) + = (2) ∂x2 ∂y2 c2 ∂t2 Where U(x, y, t) is the function of the displacement in the z direction of each point (x, y) on the plate at the time t. Since X, Y and T are mutually independent the solution must be of the form:

U(x, y, t) = X(x)Y (y)T (t) (3) Using the method of separation of the variables, a solution in the form of a harmonic wave in each direction is obtained. When applying the boundary conditions of a square plate the most general solution takes the form:

U(x, y, t) = Asin(kxx)sin(kyy)cos(ωt + φ). (4)

Where the constants are related to the length parameters of the plate Lx and L : k = nπ k = nπ . y x Lx y Ly Finding the specific solutions for a Chladni plate with free edges is not simple since it depends on a number of complicated boundary conditions such as the exact place where the bow is stroked, and the fact that the plate

14 is rigid and does not need to be under tension to be supported [20, chapter 2]. This mathematical description was not fully known at Ørsted’s time, but even if it had been, Ørsted might not have concentrated on it. He rarely expressed himself mathematically, and most of his scientific work is based on experiments and their results, which he always describes in words and often figures. While he describes the figures in great detail and is very interested in their parabolic form, he never searches for the solution to describe them (as for instance Sophie Germain did a few years later) - he was interested in the figures for other reasons. For one thing, Ørsted’s great interest in the Chladni figures is an ex- pression of his urge to find proof of his dynamical system in nature [7]. As mentioned, Ørsted was determined that a theory of nature could only be relevant if arguments for it could be found through scientific research of the phenomena. The Lichtenberg figures were mere indications of such argu- ments (as Ørsted openly admits in the end of the ”harmony” essay [17]), but in the Chladni figures he found more solid support for the dynamical system. Firstly these figures are a clear example of the mathematical symmetry that pervades nature. A pure tone produces a beautifully symmetrical geometri- cal pattern on the plate, revealing the mathematics of music in visual form. For Ørsted this shows not only connection between visuals, acoustics and aesthetics; it even proves that these aspects of nature all spring from the same underlying spirit or force: The reason of nature. As he concludes in his publication from 1810:

”what fascinates and enraptures us in the art of music and makes us forget everything while our soul soars on the flow of notes is not the mechanical stimulation of nerves. It is the deep, infinite, incomprehensible Reason of Nature which speaks to us through the flow of notes” [19].

Secondly, Ørsted had discovered what seemed to be a manifestation of the Grundkr¨afte, namely that sound and electricity are both involved in creat- ing the figures. Ørsted reports that he saw the lycopodium powder adhere more to the glass plates in the areas where the lines of the acoustic figure had just been produced indicating that the tones produced static electric- ity - and maybe that electricity and sound are just two expressions of the same basic force. This discovery combined with Ritter’s claim that a body acquires positive electricity by compression and negative by dilatation made him conclude ”thus there are in one sound as many extremely weak electrical shocks as there are oscillations” [21].

15 In Ørsted’s endeavours to find proof of the Grundkr¨afte and the Reason in Nature his metaphysical framework is shown to be very productive in the sense that it motivated Ørsted’s extended experimental work and publica- tions on sound and electricity. However, most of his conclusions in these fields are either faulty or not directly useful from a modern perspective. It is therefore safe to say that this theory only came to its full potential in Ørsted’s work with electromagnetic effects.

2.5 The discovery of electromagnetism Before Ørsted published his results on the effect of electricity on the magnetic needle in 1820, it was generally accepted in scientific circles that electricity and magnetism were not directly connected. As mentioned, Paris was the centre of European science, and here the famous scientists of the Society of Arcueil 3 agreed on a corpuscular (atomic) theory of matter, heat and light [22, chapter 6]. The most popular theories of light, heat, electricity and magnetism postulated different weightless fluids to account for the physical effects. Examples of these theories include Lavoisier’s caloric, the corpuscular theory of light and du Fay’s theory of electric fluids [9, p. 8-10] Coulomb’s famous two-fluid theory of magnetism which build on du Fay’s work, stated clearly that while both electricity and magnetism could be ex- plained by the existence of fluids made of tiny particles of opposite charges, the fluids that produced electricity were entirely different to the ones that produced magnetism. Most scientists of the time agreed on this theory which was only enforced by the discovery of the voltaic pile [23, p. 47-50]. For this reason it was not the most obvious idea to look for connections between electricity and magnetism in the early 19th century. However, as we have seen in the previous sections, the idea of finding this connection was not strange to Ørsted. Since his first encounters with Kantian philosophy and romantic Naturphilosophie he had been convinced that all physical phe- nomena are expressions of the conflicts and balance of just two basic forces. Since electricity and magnetism both show a clear polarity in their nature, Ørsted expected that it could somehow be shown that they were just two expressions of the same basic forces struggling. And as mentioned in section 2.3 he had already tried to show such a connection to the French committee in 1803 when he tried to demonstrate the existence of electric poles in the earth. In his great theoretic work from 1812 [10] and his paper on Lichten- berg Figures [17] he had again emphasized his belief in the connection and predicted that it would some day be found.

3A circle of french scientists who met regularly on summer weekends from 1806-1822

16 He had spent a lot of time working with electricity over the following years and had published several papers on the subject in which he explained how electricity is a matter of the interaction of the two grundkr¨afte. It was not, however, until 1820 that he got the idea on how to show that the same forces also acted on magnetic objects. Ørsted describes in an article for a British encyclopaedia from 1830 how he got the idea during a lecture on the analogies between electricity and magnetism [24]. He realised that since the heat and light from a conducting wire (which Ørsted believed to be the result of the two basic forces struggling) radiates perpendicular to the wire, it was quite possible that the magnetic effect would radiate in the same way. He tried to hold the wire above the needle (see figure 5), and the needle moved faintly. The listeners were not impressed with this feeble reaction 4, Ørsted recalled, and he himself was actually also a bit unsure how reliable this feeble reaction was. In the following months he repeated and varied the experiment with a stronger battery, and now his doubts disappeared. He concluded that the effect actually did not radiate from the wire as he first believed, but had a circular motion around it [24]. This is what is today known as the right hand rule.

Figure 5: The setup for the experiment that proved the existence of a mag- netic field running around the wire. It also shows the right hand rule. A compass needle is placed on a stable surface and a conducting wire is held in different positions close to it (over, under, by the side), resulting in different movements of the needle which swings to the east or the west depending on the direction of the magnetic field lines.

In the late spring of 1820 he published his first note on the discovery in Danish in the journal Dansk Litteratur-tidende (see [25]). And in July the official article written in Latin was published and sent to scholars all over Europe (see [26]). In this article Ørsted explains how the north pole swings to the east when the end of the wire closest to the positive pole is above

4This is probably not so surprising considering that the lecture was public, and the listeners probably had little idea what they were seeing

17 it, and to the west when the end closest to the negative pole is above it – as seen in the figure. The opposite happens when the wire is beneath the needle. He also reports that the deviation angle decreases with the distance to the wire and increases with the number of cells in the voltaic (which he called galvanic) battery. As mentioned, Ørsted rarely expressed his discoveries in equations or functions. This is not due to any disliking of mathematics on his part (on the contrary he defended math as a holy praxis), it was just an accepted style for scientific writings in the 18th and early 19th century. And the formal notation of electromagnetism was of course not yet established, so he described his findings in words. This is, however, not the simplest way to represent it, and today we can more easily understand Ørsted’s discovery and the right hand rule using line integrals. This is actually Ampere’s law for the field created by a steady current, which is sometimes denoted Ørsted’s law since it expresses his discovery mathematically: I B dl = µ0 · Ienc (5) C 7 Where B is the magnetic field, µ0 is the permeability (= 4π · 10 H/m) and Ienc is the current enclosed by the integral path C. The magnetic field lines go in circles around the wire in accordance with the right hand rule. When this law is applied to the case of a long straight wire we get an expression for the field strength: µ I B = 0 (6) 2πR Which shows that the magnetic field is proportional to the current, I, and inversely proportional to the radial distance from the wire, R [27, p. 225-227]. Ørsted’s way of measuring the field strength (though he did not refer to it these terms) was to look at the deviation of the needle: ”If the distance of the connecting wire from the magnetic needle does not exceed 3/4 inch, the deviation will amount to an angle of approximately 45◦. If the distance is augmented, the angles will decrease as the distances increase” [26, p.414]. When repeating the experiment today we will see that the needle easily deviates up to 90◦, but there is probably a simple reason why Ørsted did not observe this. Using eq. 6 we find that at a distance of 1.9 cm (equal to 3/4 inch), the current must be around 4A to generate an electric field that matches the field of the earth (about 0.30-0.60 G). Ørsted’s battery probably did not produce that much current which explains the smaller deviation.5 5In the note [25], however, Ørsted actually reports that the needle deviated ”up to 50◦

18 BWire direction of the compass needle

45o

BEarth

Figure 6: The north end of the compass needle points in the direction of the sum of the B-fields near it. If the B-field of the earth and the B-field of the wire are perpendicular (like in Ørsted’s experiment) and about the same size, the needle will deviate about 45◦ from the original alignment with earth’s field.

Ørsted does not go into details about the relation between the distance and the deviation angle, but today it is clear that this should not be linear. From eq. 6 it is seen that the relation between distance and field strength is linear, but it must be remembered that fields add as vectors so when the magnetic needle experiences a field from the earth of around 0.4 G and a perpendicular field from the wire of roughly the same, it will place itself in line with the resultant vector at 45◦ between the two fields. And when the distance is increased, the B-field of the wire is decreased (See figure 6), and the resultant vector gets tangentially closer to field of the earth:

B  B  tan(α) = wire ↔ α = tan−1 wire (7) Bearth Bearth Where α in the angle of the resultant vector with respect to its original alignment with the B-field of the earth.

2.6 What I Use for the Teaching Sequence In the teaching sequence I use most of the information from the previous sec- tions, as I present three connected themes to the students: Ørsted’s meta- physical world-view, Ørsted’s work with the geometrical figures of nature or 60◦, often even more” (my translation).

19 (electric and acoustic), and the discovery and interpretation of electromag- netism. Through teacher-guided exercises I have made the students familiar with the basics of Ørsted’s dynamical system and general world-view. They have then replicated central experiments of Ørsted’s: The construction of a voltaic pile, the production of acoustic and electric figures, and the effect of on a magnetic needle, and through their knowledge of Ørsted’s world- view they try to interpret their results like they believe he would. In my design of the exercises and experiments, I have used an inquiry strategy based on a constructivist view on teaching. In the following sections I explain the basis of constructivism and the more concrete strategies that I have used.

3 Didactic Theory

The didactic design of the teaching sequence is based on Piaget’s theory of constructivist learning and on some of the successful inquiry-based strate- gies that have been derived from this theory. I have combined this very general approach with recent concrete results from the research in teaching history and philosophy of physics. The European HIPST project from 2008- 10 produced many results on what does and does not work when it comes to teaching historic physics, and these results form the basis of my project.

3.1 Constructivist teaching Constructivism is basically a philosophical and epistemological viewpoint on how people generate knowledge. The most famous version is Jean Piaget’s cognitive theory on the creation of knowledge which he called genetic episte- mology. Shortly put, the theory states that humans produce their own knowl- edge based on an ongoing interaction between actions and experience [28]. Let us start with a look at the didactic triangle (figure 7) which is a popular schematic model of the central elements of didactics. The triangle shows the abstract relations between the three components of a didactic system: The content, the teacher and the student. These three components must interact constantly when learning takes place, and as a teacher you must be aware of all three relations (the ”sides” of the triangle) when teaching, even though it can be fruitful to focus your attention to one side at the time [29, p. 16-17]. Before Piaget, it was a widely accepted theory that learning would happen when a teacher explained the subject to the more or less passive student.

20 Student

Teacher Content

Figure 7: The didactic triangle.

This meant that all the didactic work was done in the lower left corner of the triangle. The behaviouristic theory of the early 20th century claimed that learning can be studied by considering only the responses of the student to the different stimuli generated by the teacher (e.g. answering questions). What is so breaking about Piaget’s theory (when applied to learning) is that it shifts the focus to the student. In this view most of the learning work takes place in the top of the triangle, and we can study learning by careful observation of the developing process in each individual [29, chapter 5]. According to Piaget’s theory, learning is a constant reorganization of mental structures which is due to a combination of biological development and experience. As children construct an understanding of a subject, they experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover, and therefore they constantly have to adjust their ideas. Central in the theory is the concept of schemas; complex mental models of the world that help us organize and categorize incoming stimuli and information. They are like index cards of knowledge that help us understand new things by comparing the new information to the schemas we already have. And learning can therefore be understood as an increase in the number and complexity of the schemas as we experience new things [30]. There are two main types of schemas:

• Figurative schemas which concern phenomena such as things, persons, properties and so on. It could be a schema about what a dog is, what your friend looks like, or how an atom is constructed.

• Operative schemas which concern actions and their consequences. For instance schemas about how you order food in a restaurant, what hap- pens when you throw a glass against a wall, or how you solve an equa- tion.

21 Some schemas are complex and abstract and others are simple and concrete. But it should be noted that most situations require the use of a combination of several schemas at once, and that many schemas are generated on the basis of others [29, chapter 5]. When we experience new things, the schemas change and adjust to the new experience. According to Piaget, schemas can only change or be devel- oped on the basis of concrete sensory experience - not theoretical informa- tion. The adaptation of schemas to the new experience can happen in two ways [29, p. 98]:

• Assimilation, which designates the process in which the new experience fits easily into an existing schema by just expanding the schema a bit.

• Accommodation, which designates a situation where the new does not fit in anywhere and the existing schema must be completely restruc- tured.

Piaget used the concept of schemas in his famous theory of the Stages of development which describes the four stages of cognitive development that a person goes through while growing up. Piaget himself did not explicitly link his theory to learning, but other researchers have shown how the theory is very useful in didactics as well. Piaget’s theory shows that the process of learning demands that each student takes personal action - you can only learn new things by relating experience to what you already know - and it shifts the focus on the didactic triangle to the relation between subject and student; with the teacher as helper. The goal of teaching becomes to facilitate each student’s personal construction of knowledge through personal action and reflection. This way of viewing learning has led to the development of important methods such as problem based learning, hands on approaches and inquiry strategies [29, p. 104-111].

3.2 Inquiry Teaching Piaget’s theory has since the middle of the last century had a huge influence on didactics in general and the didactics of science in particular. Major studies in education in the 1960’s built on Piaget’s ideas (combined with works of John Bruner and John Dewey), and led to the discovery learning movement which under the mantra ”learning by doing” changed curricular all over the world. One of the main methods of the discovery approach is the inquiry method which I have used in my teaching sequence, and which I will describe in the following.

22 It can be helpful to distinguish between inquiry based learning and inquiry teaching (even though they are of course connected).Inquiry based learning is generally a form of active learning based on questions or problems that the student has to figure out, rather than simply presenting established knowl- edge or methods to the student. In this way the students construct their own learning with the teacher as facilitator. The problems will always have to be connected to something the student already knows; the prior conceptions (schemas) of the individual which might be modified during the learning process, and to the general context of the learning situation [31]. Inquiry teaching refers to a number of methods and approaches that the teacher can use to facilitate inquiry based learning. Common strategies in- clude open field-studies, concrete case studies, problem solving in groups and small research projects. There is often a social element in the strategies since understanding in inquiry is considered to be enriched by engagement with others [31]. It is crucial for the success of the strategy, that the teacher never solves the problem for the students, but rather supports the students in their own solving process. According to the American professor of didactics Alan Schoenfeld, there are four factors that the teacher must pay attention to in order to provide this support [29, p. 127] • Resources. The student’s knowledge base which must be brought into play with the problem to be solved. • Heuristics. The more general and abstract problem-solving strategies that the student knows and which can be applied to the concrete prob- lem. • Control. The student’s self-regulation or metacognition which is used to stay focused and keep track of the process as a coherent procedure from beginning to end • Beliefs. The ideas and suggestions that the student has about the subject. These ideas often come from prior experience with the subject and are often quite personal. When a student gets stuck in the learning process it can be due to any of these factors or a combination of them. The student might for instance have all the necessary resources to solve the problem but still be unable to solve it due to lack of control of the process or a misunderstanding about the nature of the subject. The knowledge of a student will never be brought to play if the student cannot see the larger picture in the problem to be solved or lack the basic heuristic skills to for instance break the problem up in smaller tasks.

23 Inquiry teaching aims to provide the students with problems that match the level the student has reached in all four factors. Therefore not all problem solving situations can be equally open and unguided and we can therefore speak of different levels of inquiry [32].

• Confirmation inquiry. A traditional approach in science teaching in which a concept or a method and the students conform this for them- selves through an activity in which the results are given in advance.

• Structured inquiry. The teacher provides an initial question to be an- swered and an outline of the procedure. The students gather their own results and tries to explain them through analysis.

• Guided inquiry.The teacher provides only the question, and it is up to the students to find a method and design a procedure to answer this.

• Open inquiry. The students formulate their own research question and design the methods and strategies to answer it.

There are of course pros and cons to each of these levels, and they must be chosen carefully with the learning goal in mind. While the more guided and structured tasks are better fitted to teach concrete facts, they cannot match the open approach in developing the independent problem-solving skills of the students. The most open approach is, however, very demanding of both teacher and student and might easily end up with no learning at all (especially for the more challenged or younger students) [32].

3.3 HIPST As it is vaguely indicated in the last section, the constructivist point of view actually holds some good arguments for teaching historical physics. In inquiry teaching it is explicitly noted that students learn only through personal discovery of information in a process that clearly mimics the research process. If that is the case, the advantages of historical case-studies and replication of historical experiments should be obvious; when working like a scientist you automatically do inquiry. Unfortunately, things might not be quite that simple. The results from the biggest European research project on teaching the history of science, the HIPST-project, suggest that students actually do not understand scientific content better just because it is taught from a historic perspective. But that does not at all mean that this approach is worthless for science teaching! In this section I present the most interesting ideas and results from the HIPST

24 project, focusing on the concepts that I have found useful for my teaching sequence. HIPST (History and Philosophy of Science) is a European project with partners from 8 different countries who have worked together to research efficient strategies for implementing HPS (History and Philosophy of Science) into science teaching. One of the main goals of the project is to help the inclusion of more HPS in science teaching and learning by increasing the availability of HPS related teaching material. Therefore a central part of the project was to carry out several case studies of teaching sequences, similar to the one presented in this thesis, and share the material with science teachers all over the world. A summary of the methodology, strategies and results of these case studies can be found in an article by H¨ottecke et al [33]. The project takes its starting point in the awareness that HPS suffers from lack of interest from many science teachers and curriculum developers, and a description of the obstacles and challenges of the approach can be found in [1]. Contrary to the idea presented at the top of this section, H¨ottecke et al do not view HPS as an effective way to teach science content through ”working like the scientists of the past”. This idea has been proposed by others (Winsløw [29, p. 37-40], Monk and Osborne [34]) but according to H¨ottecke et al the idea ”is tempting, but it simply does not sound realistic [...]” After all, the modern textbook version of the knowledge will have to be presented to the students at the end of the sequence, to ensure that misunderstandings about the content is avoided, and this ”makes it highly plausible, that they [the students] will regard the textbook knowledge as the superior scientific view and that attempts to understand the history of science are regarded ”as simply a waste of time”” [33, p. 1236-7]. As students and teachers are immersed in a subject culture that values the security and completeness of scientific knowledge [1], it is likely that they will not care much for the historical perspective which, according to Monk and Osborne, is a means to view science as a developing discourse – not a final truth. However, this does not mean that HPS is not relevant in science teach- ing. On the contrary, HPS has a great advantage if we shift the focus from knowledge acquisition to understanding the process and methods of science, also called the ”nature of science” or NoS. And in many ways NoS can be said to be the most important thing that high school students have to learn about science: Most of them will never need the concrete scientific content, but as citizens of a knowledge society they all need an understanding of what science is, how it is conducted and how it generates knowledge. And because most modern science research is often way to complicated for the students (and the teachers as well), the history of science is very useful for showing

25 these aspects at a level that actually matches the students’. In addition to this, the results of HIPST indicate that such an NoS-related perspective is very appealing to students on high school or university level, and it is also a perspective which is encouraged or even demanded in many curricula. 6 It also deals with the problem of students being used to focus on the ”correct” modern version of scientific content, as long as it is explicitly made clear to them that content knowledge is not the goal of teaching the history and philosophy of physics [33]. This of focus to NoS does not mean that the HIPST project re- jects constructivism and inquiry approaches, either – quite the reverse, as HIPST builds on constructivist theory by focusing on learners’ perspectives and student centred activities. The HIPST project uses a constructivist model called ”the model of educational reconstruction” to design the milieu or learning environment based on two things: The students’ prior ideas and beliefs about NoS and HPS, and the structure of the scientific content and its history. ”These [two] aspects influence the didactical structuring, the de- sign of a story line and the choice of NoS aspects to be highlighted in a case study” [33, p.1238]. Their use of the model makes it clear that nothing is gained from implementing HPS in teaching if it is just used as anecdotes or one-dimensional stories of success, interpreted in the light of what we know today. Instead for HPS to have an effect, it must be applied to the learning environment and determine the structure of the sequence as a whole. More concretely this is done by the design of case-studies that focus on a single historic discovery, phenomenon or scientist in order to consider science in a ”detailed, but exemplary manner” [33, p.1235]. A case study has many advantages: It has a structure (for instance the work that led to a certain discovery or the lifetime of a particular scientist) that can be applied to the sequence, it is a concrete way to highlight some very general aspects of NoS, and it has a narrative element which, according to the results from HIPST, is very appealing to many students. General characteristics of science are highlighted, for example the empirical and inferential NoS, the role of instruments, ex- periments, theories, models or specific skills of scientist and their helpers. Furthermore, showing the interrelation of society, culture and science is central. Science should be portrayed as a human and social endeavor. [33, p.1235] In the case-studies, HIPST has used a guided inquiry approach in the de- sign of learning environments since earlier research has indicated that ”true” 6Even though the NoS related parts of curricula often tend to be neglected by teachers, simply because they lack the tools to implement it, cf. H¨ottecke et al. 2011 [1]

26 or open inquiry often is too difficult for students to handle, resulting in no or minimal learning outcome [35]. H¨ottecke et al suggests a number of concrete activities to include in the case study based on the results from HIPST. they aim at raising the students’ interest while facilitating cognitive and meta- cognitive activities. Not all of them are useful for my sequence but some of them played an important role in my project:

• Use and replication of historical apparatus: The role of experiments is crucial for teaching NoS in a constructivist way. Through repetition of historic experiments the students learn about science as a process of failures and obstacles, as they experience for themselves how scientific work is done.

• Creative writing or role-play: These approaches can be used in a con- crete way where the students imagine how a historic event in science happened and act it out (in writing and talking), but it can also refer to a more general meta-cognitive approach in which the students for instance imagine how a certain historic person would interpret their experimental and discuss this with each other.

• The Reflection Corner: An applicable method for addressing NoS ex- plicitly, is to have a corner at one end of the room from which all discussions on NoS is initiated. The teacher will go to this corner when asking more generalized questions about the NoS content of a concrete experiment, thereby helping the students to distinguish between exper- imental work and generalized ideas about science as a discipline.

4 The Purpose and Design of the Teaching Sequence

This project aims at putting the theoretical considerations above to use in the design of a concrete teaching sequence. The basis of the sequence is the knowledge of H. C. Ørsted’s work and philosophy, a constructivist view on learning and the concrete strategies proposed by the HIPST project. With inspiration from HIPST, the focus of the sequence is NoS, and more specifically the question: How is scientific knowledge created?. I want this question to remain rather open to discussion through the whole sequence, but I will try to make the students see three aspects of the answer:

• The scientific process is messy, non-linear and full of mistakes. Mistakes and blind-alleys are inevitable and often even useful.

27 • Science is not a secluded discipline; It is much more involved with culture and society than we tend to believe. The word ”paradigm” is relevant here. • While science strives towards objectivity, it is in fact impossible for any scientist to entirely abandon subjectivity. Ideas and beliefs of the scientist will affect the work on some level and that is not necessarily a bad thing. These rather general and abstract aspects of NoS can be considered the learning goals of the sequence though I want to keep the central question open to the students’ own ideas and formulations. In this section I present the didactical considerations that I put into the design of the sequence and provide an overview of the final lesson plan including intended learning outcomes and the concrete didactic strategies.

4.1 Factual details and lesson plan As mentioned above, I tested my designed teaching sequence on my own class: A small group of only eight students in 3.g (third year of Danish high school) taking physics on the B-level (middle-level). They have all had mandatory physics on the C-level in 1.g and have chosen to proceed with physics as their mandatory B-level science subject. Therefore they are not all classmates but come from three different classes with different specialisations. They were, however, quite familiar with each other since the school is rather small. I had been teaching my class for 7 months when I began the sequence and knew the students and their resources quite well. All of these practical elements play a role my design. Most importantly, the size and familiarity of the class made many aspects of class management less important. It made organisation of group discussions easier, since the entire class could participate in the same discussion. Furthermore, experi- menting could be done in only two groups which allowed me to control the level of inquiry quite well and adjust the didactical milieu for each group continuously if my first attempt turned out to be a bit optimistic. This ad- justment would obviously be harder to administer with 30 students. I have also been aware that I could manage more within the time frame with this small group of students than what might be possible with a large group. Lastly, the demand for apparatus and organisation of its use was obviously smaller that it would have been in a larger class. The sequence is comprised of 5 lessons (and a half), each of a 100 minutes, held with a few days or maximum a week between them. I recorded the sound of all lessons with my phone for later analysis.

28 Lesson 1: Introduction to HPS, NoS and the content The purpose of lesson 1 is mainly to introduce the students to the sequence, its methods and its content. More specifically, I introduce Ørsted’s biography and his dynamic theory. As emphasized in H¨ottecke et al [33, p. 1237] it is important to prepare the students for the unfamiliar change of focus from scientific content to NoS and explain this to them explicitly. Like most physics teachers (cf. H¨ottecke [1]) I have never before worked this explicitly with HPS and NoS in my classes, and the students were therefore used to consider acquisition of technical and concrete scientific knowledge to be the goal of the physics lessons. I therefore start out by clarifying that the sequence and its results are going to be the basis of a master thesis, and that I will therefore be recording the lessons, as they had all agreed to earlier. The next step is a definition of HPS and its advantages for teaching science and especially NoS aspects. I then define NoS whilst explicitly noting that this is to be the main focus of the sequence, and how that is different from what the students are used to in physics. I introduce the main question: ”How is scientific knowledge created” and explain how the RC (Reflection Corner) works. Then I give the students a writing exercise with four NoS related questions that fit the learning goals of the sequence (see Appendix A) which has two purposes: The first is to give me a clearer idea of the students’ pre-existing knowledge on the subject so that I can adjust my design of the didactical situations accordingly. The second is to provide some data on the learning outcome for the students, since they will be given the same writing exercise in the last lesson. The last part of the lesson is an introduction to H. C. Ørsted and his time (see the introduction to section 2). The purpose is to provide the basic information about the historical case, but also put the case-study into context with knowledge that the students have from other subjects such as history and Danish. In this way I relate the new knowledge to the students’ existing schemas about the Danish Golden Age and historic science. This lesson is much more teacher controlled than the rest of them because the subject is so new and different. The last part is however a task for the students: They read a one-page introduction to Ørsted’s dynamical system written by me (see appendix B). I ask them to do the reading in pairs and discuss each paragraph with each other before we talk about it as a group.. At the end I round off the lesson by summing up the main points of Ørsteds theory and introducing next weeks homework which is a an essay on science and art written by Ørsted.

29 Lesson 2: ”The Fountain” and the voltaic pile The purpose of Lesson 2 is to give the students an idea of the scientific progress in physics at Ørsted’s time, both theoretically and experimentally. The intention is that the students get a better understanding of the tools and knowledge that Ørsted had at hand when he made his discoveries. The homework, reading Ørsted’s essay ”The Fountain” [36], provides a starting point for a discussion about what physics was at Ørsteds time and how Ørsted viewed it. The essay deals with classical mechanics, liquid dy- namics and light in a pedagogical but, for the students, very old-fashioned way which means that a certain amount of guiding is necessary for the stu- dents to draw important points out. I ask the following questions:

• Which physical phenomena are presented in the text? From this I give a short overview of what was known about these phenomena at the time.

• What does the text say about the relationship between art and science, and do you agree? This question is more open for the students’ own opinions

• Do you see traces of Ørsted’s dynamical system in this text? With this I make a connection to the last lesson and create a didactical situation in which the students apply general information to a concrete text, in order to learn what this information (the dynamical system means). I confirm, reject and guide their answers by more specific questions.

The second part of the lesson is the first experiment of the sequence: The construction of a voltaic pile. First, I remind the students the most basic equations of electric currents which I taught earlier in the year: Q I = (Current equals charge pr. time) t E U = (Voltage equals pr. charge) Q

U = R · I (Voltage equals resistance times current) We talk about the modern understanding of electricity on a level that matches high school B-level and I explain to them, that Ørsted could not know nearly as much about this as they do. They actually have to forget their knowledge of flow and electric forces and start from the bottom: With the experiment.

30 Figure 8: The design of the simple voltaic battery built in Lesson 1. Here shown with only two cells. Each glass contains vinegar, one strip of copper and one strip of zinc. Wires connect the zinc pieces to the copper pieces and a light emitting (LED) is put in to test if it works. A -meter measures the voltage over the diode.

I then introduce the students to what was known about electricity before Ørsted’s time: Experiments with static electricity and ”animal electricity” discovered by Galvani. Then I move on to the invention of the voltaic pile and give them a written instruction on how to build one (Appendix C). The original version is explained in section 2.1, but the version that I instructed the students to build is a simpler construct of a few voltaic cells connected in series as seen on figure 8. This experiment is inquiry on a lower level, almost confirmation inquiry, which is chosen for two reasons: Firstly, the students are not that used to more open inquiry, and with all the new elements they encounter in the first lessons, I wanted to start of with a more traditional experiment guide. Sec- ondly, the voltaic battery is no invention of Ørsted’s (though he developed his own version), and therefore the students’ situation actually resemble Ørsted’s more when they build something they have instructions for but have not seen in action. The work with the voltaic battery should give the students a sense of the material that Ørsted had at hand, and show them that electricity can actually be generated from very simple items. As the students build their experiment I try to interfere as little as possible and, when needed, help them through questions rather than instruction.

31 They light a diode and measure the current and the voltage of the battery and I instruct them to see what they can do to change the outcomes. I suggest looking for a relationship between the number of cells and the voltage and I ask them to express this as a function of the form f(x) = ... I encourage them to also test the battery by putting the in their mouth like it was done at Ørsted’s time (note that this is not dangerous as the battery only produces about 100 µA and maximum 3 V). They discuss which sensation or taste this gives and compare with the sensation of a wire which is not connected to a power source. I also ask the question: Why do you think Ørsted took an interest in this and what did he see in it? They discuss this in groups. At the end of the lesson I gather results on the blackboard. then I go to the RC and, after reminding them what the RC is, ask the questions:

• If you think about what we have seen and discussed about the voltaic pile today, can you say something about how scientists generally influ- ence each other’s work through new discoveries?

• Which other factors might affect which field of research a physicist chooses?

These questions are discussed in pairs and the main points are gathered on the blackboard. I intend the students to mention cultural and philosophic movements when answering the second question. For homework they have to go through the experimental guide again and make notes to all questions posed there.

Lesson 3: Chladni and Lichtenberg figures Lesson 3 shows the students the experimental side of Ørsted’s philosophy by letting them repeat two of the central experiments that Ørsted used to back up his dynamic theory: the Chladni figures and the Lichtenberg figures. The lesson begins with a short recap of the points from lesson 2 and answering the question from the experimental guide. The students discuss while I take notes on the black board. Then I introduce the procedure of the two experiments verbally to all students while showing them the equipment. The level of inquiry is here raised to structured inquiry, and so I do not inform the students about what will happen or how to interpret it. Then I divide the class into two groups each responsible for one of the experiments and for showing their results to the rest. This is to enhance the chance that they formulate something concrete and substantial about their results with the other group in mind.

32 Figure 9: A drawing from the 19th century showing how to make Chladni figures with a violin bow. Source: Elementary Lessons on Sound by W.H. Stone, 1879.

The Chladni figures are made following this procedure (see figure 9):

• A square plate of about 30x30 cm and 3 mm thick has a rod/handle attached perpendicular to its surface at the centre of the the bottom of the plate. The rod is then fixed to a table using a clamp so that the top of the plate is horizontal.

• Fine table salt or flour is strewn lightly on the top of the plate.

• A very well resined, very tight violin bow is used to stroke edge of the plate vertically (many examples of this can be found on Youtube). This part is tricky and demands a bit of practice. The bow must be pressed very hard and rather slowly against the plate, perhaps using both hands - it feels like you are destroying the bow. Nothing happens until a tone is heard.

• When a clear loud tone is heard, the salt moves on the surface to create a geometric pattern like the one seen on figure 10.

• By changing the pressure on the bow or moving it a bit, other patterns occur.

The students are instructed to describe everything they find in detail and to take pictures to document their patterns. They are only given the most

33 Figure 10: Two Chladni figures produced in Lesson 2 by stroking the alu- minium plate with a violin bow. basic instructions and are encouraged to try their own ideas and variations but the relevance of mathematical observations (symmetry, geometry) is em- phasized. I also explicitly point out that this procedure is identical to the one Ørsted used. The Lichtenberg figures are made this way (though there are several al- ternative ways to do them):

• Two small metal spheres with handles are mounted in holders so that the spheres are not touching anything, see figure 11.

• The two spheres are charged by connecting one to the minus and the other to the plus pole of an adjustable and turning up the voltage. When the two spheres are a few mm apart a spark jumps between them 7

• The two spheres are placed almost close enough to produce a spark and then a clear plastic sheet (the kind used in old overhead projectors) is placed between them. It will immediately attract to one of the spheres and touch it. In this way charge is spreading quickly over the large insulating surface.

7be aware that even though the voltage need not be very high, this part of the experi- ment requires thorough safety instructions and the teacher should be near the students at all times.

34 • Now fine talcum powder is strewn lightly over the surface. It can help to blow it. Now patterns like the ones seen in figure 12 occurs.

Figure 11: The two metal spheres that are connected to a power supply.

Here I also encourage the students to be creative and try different ap- proaches in accordance with the inquiry idea. After the students have taken notes and pictures of their results, it is important to point out that this pro- cedure is not the one Ørsted followed. In fact, Ørsted does not describe his course of action, but he mentions the use of a Leyden jar (see [17]) which was an early capacitor used to keep charges generated by an . As insulating surface he used a piece of wood covered with a fine layer of resin8. After about 40 mins of experimenting and taking notes the two groups demonstrate their experiments, considerations and results to each other. The lesson ends with a group discussion where I ask them to remember the con- clusions from reading my introduction to Ørsteds metaphysics and ”The Fountain”, and then try to interpret these results from Ørsted’s point of view. I encourage them to associate wildly. I guide the discussion by making notes on the blackboard of suggenstions that are in accordance with Ørsteds own articles on the figures, and explain- ing to them when their arguments or ideas are not in line with Ørsted’s

8For a procedure more similar to Ørsted’s, I recommend watching this video pro- duced by Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica in Florence: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Z9uJDji02NA

35 Figure 12: Lichtenberg figures produced in Lesson 2. The charge has spread over the plastic sheet in branching -like structures, revealed when dusting the sheet with talcum. way of thinking. I briefly explain what Ørsted believed to have found in the Chladni figures and the way he interpreted the Lichtenberg figures as a key to understanding nature. This subject is taken up again in the next lesson as the students are given an excerpt from one of Ørsteds articles on the acoustic figures (see [21]) to read as homework.

Lesson 4: The failure in Paris This lesson has no experiments but is focused on two purposes: To discuss and clarify the rather complicated ideas presented in the homework and to introduce the students to the main scientific failure in Ørsteds career (Paris 1803). First I show a schematic representation of Ørsted’s two-force system as he saw it expressed in Lichtenberg figures and in nature more generally (see also section 2.4). I fill out the plus and minus side of the schema in accordance with the theory presented in Ørsted’s article on electric figures [17]:

• The positive force: The anode of the voltaic pile, one end of the mag- net, oxygen, branching structures in Lichtenberg figures, branches in

36 vegetation, the veins of animals, daytime and summer, the direction east.

• The negative force: The cathode of the voltaic pile, the other end of the magnet, hydrogen, enclosing circular structures in Lichtenberg figures, plant fibres in vegetation, the body parts of animals, nighttime and winter, the direction west.

I make sure to explain how these two forces are in Ørsteds view not separate, but deeply connected as they are actually two sides of the same unifying Urkraft. The students pose their questions about the homework and we discuss to what degree this article [17] can be said to be scientific. I explain that Ørsted worked with analogies as a method. I then go to RC and ask if the students can imagine any situations or fields where analogies might be useful in science. Then we move on to the Chladni figures. The students help each other re- construct the most important things that Ørsted believed to have discovered in his experiment. These are presented on the blackboard, and we discuss whether the students observed the same in their own experiments without even knowing what they were looking for. We compare his writings on the two types of figures and find similarities and differences (most importantly that the article on Chladni figures is more concrete and factual compared to the rather speculative article on Lichtenberg figures). This part of the lesson ends with a quote on Ørsted’s aesthetic theory (see Appendix D) which I hand out to the students with some questions to answer in pairs. We discuss the meaning of ”the Good, the True and the Beautiful”. From the RF I then pose two questions: 1. Considering what you have heard about Ørsted’s interpretations of these figures, what can you say about the relationship between a scientist’s mindset and his discoveries? 2. Do you see a relationship between art and science? What about culture in a broader sense? The second part of the lesson is about Ørsted’s friendship with Ritter and his presentation of Ritter’s to the French committee. Using a ppt- presentation I briefly introduce Johann Ritter as a historic figure and some of his most relevant work as presented in section 2.3. He is placed in the context of German romanticism and the contrast to French mathematical science is underlined. I explain the experiments that Ørsted presented in Paris in the competi- tion for the Napoleon Price, starting with the storage column. Here I make a reference to the voltaic battery that the students built, and remind them that electricity was still not very well understood. Then I explain the zinc-silver

37 needle and show them an ”electric compass” similar to Ørsted’s made from a strip of copper and a strip of zink connected and hung balancing from a thin thread 9. I let the student test if they can see alignment. Returning to the homework about Lichtenberg figures and the duality of natural phenomena that Ørsted described here, I explain the theory of the earth having electric poles. I make it clear which part of the presentation went well (the storage column) and which part failed (the earth’s electric poles). The students discuss in pairs: 1. What would this presentation mean to Ørsted’s future work? 2. What could Ørsted have done to avoid this. After the discussion in pairs the students write their ideas on the blackboard and we discuss them. From the RC I ask: ”How can failed experiments generally affect a scientist? Think of both positive and negative effects.” This is discussed in pairs before wrapping it up at the blackboard.

Lesson 5: The discovery of electromagnetism The purpose of this lesson is to let the students ”discover” electromagnetism for themselves through repetition of Ørsteds original experiment with guided inquiry. This is not mainly done to teach them about electromagnetism (although that is a nice bonus), but to let them experience how discoveries like this are made. An important part of the answer to this question of course lies in the context of the previous 4 lessons which were intended to show the ideas, the experiments and the failures that built up to this concrete discovery. The main point is: The discovery of electromagnetism was not accidental, like some retellings of the story would have it, it was the result of a life’s work of theory and experimenting - and a lot of misunderstandings. The lesson starts out with a short recap of Lesson 4, mentioning Ørsted’s and Ritter’s failed experiments and what they were trying to show. Then I simply hand out experimental guides (see Appendix E) which contain little more than information about equipment and the vague goal: To find out as many details as possible about what happens when current runs in a wire close to a compass needle. The very simple setup (which very much resembles Ørsted’s original experiment) is seen in figure 5. I remind the students to make systematic observations and variable con- trol which are two concepts that they know from earlier physics lessons. The students work in two groups, and they are as always encouraged to be cre- ative and try whichever ideas they might have. If they are lacking ideas I help them by suggesting shielding of the compass or different positions of

9I wasn’t able to find a strip of silver for the experiment, but Ørsted’s theory was based on what we today call the , and copper should therefore work almost as well as silver

38 the wire - in this guiding I use my knowledge about what Ørsted tested in his original experiment to keep the inquiry approach relevant. The students take detailed notes and make drawings of their observations. I especially want them to look for variables that depend on each other: If one variable is changed a bit how does that affect the outcome? Can you plot it? Does it look like a linear function: f(x) = a · x ? They also discuss how they believe Ørsted would interpret these observa- tions. After about 40 minutes they are asked to gather their results in a few main points and discuss these with students from other groups – have they observed the same? I then hand out the first ever publication Ørsted made about his electromagnetic results [25] (a two page note in Danish in Dansk Litteratur-Tidende 1820 - used here because it is easier to read than the more comprehensive article published later that year), and they identify the points on which they have found the same results as Ørsted. We discuss this as I make notes on the blackboard and add information from Ørsteds first international article about electromagnetism published in Latin later in July 1821 [26]. We confirm the right-hand rule and discuss how to draw field lines for this situation. In pairs the students discuss: Which links they see between this discovery and Ørsted’s earlier work as they know it. In the end I move to the RC and ask the following questions:

• Considering what we have seen today and in lesson 4, what can you say about the value of making mistakes in science. Think of both good and bad. • How would you describe the process of scientific discovery?

The first question is discussed with the whole class. The second is dis- cussed in pairs before discussing with the whole class. I make notes on the blackboard of all comments but give extra attention to comments related to the learning goals (see the top of this section). After the last lesson the students answer the same short writing exercise as the one in the first lesson (see Appendix A). I also make time in the following lesson to discuss the importance of the discovery. I explain how Amp`ereand Maxwell went on with the mathematical description and show the law in this form: I B dl = µ0 · Ienc (8) C The students are not familiar with line integrals and fields so I try to explain how to understand the notation conceptually in relation to the con-

39 crete experiment. In the case of an infinite wire the concrete B-field becomes: µ0I B = 2πR . We discuss how this relates to the measurements made by the students (the inverse relation between distance and effect). I explain how Maxwell’s work opened the modern understanding of electric and magnetic fields and their huge value in science and .

5 Analysis of Transcripts and Writings

In this section I present an analysis of the transcripts of the sound recordings and the students’ answers to the writing exercise (appendices F and G). At the end of the section I provide an overview of my results in the form of a list of concrete advise for designing and applying an HPS-sequence.

5.1 Method of Analysis It should be noted that my data and analysis can not be seen as evidence or proof of anything general. The dataset is obviously too small to make any meaning of quantisation, and I am not in any way educated in the formal method of working with focus groups and similar qualitative material. In addition to that, I will not claim that my class can be said to represent any general tendency in Danish high school, since it is for instance unusually small and come from a private high school in the wealthier part of Copenhagen. What I can achieve with this data concerns the applicability of my se- quence and its didactical components to a real teaching situation. Some ideas work very well in theory but when put to practical use unforeseen issues tend to arise. By teaching my sequence to real students I have tested its usefulness and discovered some of its faults. Apart from that I will also point out that from a constructivist point of view the process of learning is similar for all people - the difference lies in the schemas each person has. In my analysis I will look for situations which indicate that my students construct their own knowledge and express their own ideas of NoS aspects. And if learning like this can happen based on my sequence, this would at least indicate that the techniques in my sequence has the ability to change such schemas and help the students to create knowledge. The transcripts in F are divided into episodes of 5 - 30 minutes length and put in chronological order. For each episode I have noted the lesson, the time, the context and the participating students (who are anonymised). The transcripts are close to the students’ formulations, but not word-to-word exact (see the details in the appendix). I will analyse the transcripts focusing on four main aspects:

40 • What was the outcome of reading Ørsted’s original texts?

• How did the students manage the inquiry approach and has anything been gained from it?

• How successful was the idea of getting the students to think and work like Ørsted and thereby experience the scientific process from within?

• To what extent have the students adopted the three points about sci- ence as a discipline presented in section 4.

5.2 Practical Problems Before I go on to these main areas of analysis, let me just mention a few practical issues that occurred during the sequence. First of all, as one might expect when teaching new material, the planned time frame (presented in section 4) did not fit exactly. Generally the experiments went faster than ex- pected and some discussions dragged out. Most importantly the experiments with figures in lesson 3 went quicker than expected and we were therefore able to do the discussion about Ørsted’s interpretation of the Lichtenberg figures already in lesson 3. This turned out to be lucky since the discus- sion in lesson 4 about the articles on Chladni and Lichtenberg figures and Ørsted’s aesthetic dragged out. Actually this took so long that I had too little time to finish teaching Ørsted’s presentation of Ritter’s inventions and the discussion about this was moved to Lesson 5. The experiment with the compass needle took about the rest of lesson 5, and therefore the discussion about this last experiment was done in lesson 6 (which I had initially not meant to be a full lesson). Regarding the equipment there were also a few problems that I would like to address. firstly the voltaic battery is rather impractical and messy since the glasses with vinegar tend to fall over when the metal pieces are connected to wires. Also, though the experiment was an overall success, I would in hindsight have preferred that the battery looked more like the actual pile invented by Volta 10 but due to limited time and available equipment it was not possible in this lesson. Secondly, I had some trouble with the compasses I had bought which did not work properly, and it was lucky that I had extras. 10I recommend this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIdPfDHeROI for in- structions

41 5.3 Reading Original Ørsted’s Texts Reading original texts by Ørsted was probably the least successful element in the sequence, although it did work well on one occasion. During the sequence the students read excerpts from the following texts: The Fountain [36] (full text), A Letter from Mr. Ørsted to Professor Pictet on Acoustic Vibrations [21] (second half), a quote from Experiments on Acoustic Figures (see Appendix D), and the first ever published note on the discovery of electromagnetism [25] (full text). The main reason for giving the students original texts to read was that I wanted to enhance their feeling of following a scientist’s trail of thought. This is relevant for many aspects of NoS including the focus of this sequence: How is scientific knowledge created? The students ought to get as close as possible to the scientist’s mind. The obvious challenge in this is of course the scientific level of the publication and the difficulty of the language, but in his case I deemed both to be manageable. The chosen texts are either not very scientific (the quote on aesthetics), quite simple theoretically (projectile motion, water pressure in The Fountain) or very concrete observations (the letter on Chladni figures and the note on the discovery of EM). In addition Ørsted wrote in a rather simple language for his time, and his texts were always intended to be pedagogical and accessible to the common reader. It seems however from the recordings of the lessons, that I was generally wrong on this point. When bringing up the original texts (which had often been homework) the student’s were generally much more quiet and reluctant to answer questions than in any other discussion, which often resulted in me speaking too much and thereby returning to the less effective (according to constructivism) strategy of informing the students of what I intended them to see in the texts. Episode 6 from the transcript is a good example of exactly that. It is the discussion of Ørsteds letter about Chladni figures, which the students had experimented with in the lesson before. I first asked if there were any questions to the text. This was followed by silence. I therefore got more concrete and asked ”What does Ørsted believe to be the two most important things he has discovered in his research?” (line 483). This was followed by a pause of mumbling and the question from Fu: ”You mean in what we read?”, indicating that he does not remember finding two discoveries in the text. Then Rs answered (correctly) ”He seems very excited that he was able to measure an ...”. I agree, and then Ch admits: ”He [Ørsted] starts out by saying he has made two discoveries, but I just don’t get what the second one is [...] He starts by saying a lot of crap that I don’t understand. I suppose that’s what you’re hinting at?” I agree with him and

42 end up explaining the second discovery (that the dust moves in many small oscillations - not in one single move) myself. A very similar situation occurred in lesson 2 in the discussion of The Fountain and in lesson 4 when we discussed the quote on aesthetics. In both cases the students seemed to have missed very central information from the texts, and the simple explanation seems to be that I have underestimated how difficult these texts are to read. The vocabulary and sentence structure is of course very old-fashioned compared to modern Danish and this might have caused trouble. Neither the students nor I am used to working with original texts in class and it is therefore not too surprising that I have estimated their resources in this area wrongly. I have not transcribed these two episodes because they consist mainly of me explaining what I want the students to learn about Ørsted based on the texts – instead of them finding their way to it through discussion. From a didactic viewpoint this is obviously not ideal. According to constructivism and inquiry, learning is something the student has to construct through acting and reflecting. This happens when the student uses tools given in class to solve problems and get to the right answers on their own (with the teacher as a guide), not when the teacher simply gives him or her the right answers. Had I had more time, I would have re-designed the whole situation to a much more guided approach, where they would perhaps read only a few lines at the time and then discuss them in pairs before going through them with me. In lesson 6 however, the use of original texts actually did turn out to be a winning strategy. In episode 11 from the transcript the students examine Ørsted’s first publication on electromagnetism in great detail. And they point out all the important things he found: The deviation of the needle and its dependence on where the wire is placed (the right-hand rule), how big the deviation was, the range of the effect, and that it cannot be shielded. One explanation for this might be that the text is simpler: The language is plain and the description of the simple experiment is very concrete. Another reason might be that the details of Ørsted’s discovery are so similar to what the students discovered - and remembered - in their own (inquiry-based) conduction of the same experiment in lesson 5.

5.4 Inquiry and Experiments The sequence contains four experiments: Building a voltaic battery (episode 1), producing Chladni figures (episode 3), producing Lichtenberg figures (les- son 3, not transcribed) and tracing the magnetic field around a wire using a compass (episode 9 and 10). After each experiment there was a discussion of the results and the interpretation. The experiments work as a way to let

43 the students experience the scientific progress and discuss this in relation to a concrete case as suggested in HIPST [1,33]. As mentioned in section 4 the level of inquiry was raised from confirma- tion/structured inquiry in the first experiment to structured/guided inquiry in the following two, and guided/open inquiry in the last one. The overall results indicate that the use of inquiry had a positive outcome for the learn- ing. This can for instance be seen in the work with Chladni figures (episode 3). This experiment demands a special technique to work, and Fu, Th and Ag develop this technique through an (almost) independent trial-and-error process. For instance they discover that it does not work to stroke the cor- ners of the plate, and that the bow should be held at a right angle with the plate. They also produce several different tones by changing their technique slightly. When they actually succeed in making a tone and a figure they are really excited and pleased - and more enthusiastic than usual. It also gives them ideas to expand the experiment on their own (l. 292-295):

Fu: ”Oy, oy oy, that looks so creepy! Look at that, Th, it’s making some sort of... do you see?”

Th: ”Mmm. I also have Guitar-tune. Do you want me to find it?”

Guitar-tune is an app on Th’s phone that the group use to find out which tone they are playing on the plate. This idea came from the students, and this shows how a certain degree of autonomy over an experiment can lead to more independent ideas and decisions. After using the app they considered the movements of the salt and whether the figure in the salt looked like the letter of the tone they hear (l. 310-322):

Ag: ”It looks like those, I don’t know, those...”

Fu: ”Like a game?”

Ag: ”No no, like a Styrofoam box that has crumbled. Don’t you see it? You know those small spheres... The way they move because they also get all, like, electrical.”

Fu: ”When you play, the dust begins to jump very much and then it settles”

Ag: ”It’s like a dance”

Fu: ”Oy, it’s so beautiful! Oy, it’s so creepy. It’s a fucking H!”

Ag: ”It almost looks like an H, do you see?”

44 Th: ”Yes.”

The figure produced, which is shown the second picture in figure 10, does not look very much like an actual H, but this way of thinking in parallels is very imaginative and not very far from Ørsted’s. As one might expect, free experimenting and association might not get the students to all the right answers, but in this case it stimulates their interest and their ability to generate ideas. In the transcript above they also make two significant observations which matches Ørsted’s almost exactly: They discover that the displacement of the dust does not happen in one sweep but in many tiny jumps. This is not really surprising when you know that the plate is vibrating at a few hundred Hz plus overtones, but what Ørsted saw was that these many vibrations, which he attributed to the overtones, created a friction between powder and plate which generated static electricity [19, p. 274]. Ag sees something similar to this (without knowing Ørsted’s observation) when she compares the move- ment of the salt to Styrofoam crumble which can also jump irregularly due to electrical adherence. When the class examined Ørsteds letter on this in the following lesson, Ag remembered clearly what she had observed. Compared with the results from reading original publications, this might indicate that what is learned through inquiry experiments was easier to remember for the students than what they read. Some of the same tendencies can be found in the experiment with the voltaic battery. As can be seen in episode 1, Sp talks a lot in this experiment and is very keen to make it work (lines 124-135). I let the group solve the challenges on their own, and they actually ended up with a lighting diode after being rather frustrated in the process (l. 107-115):

Ma: ”We have zinc to copper, zinc to copper, that’s right ”

Sp: ”But nothing happens! Ugh!”

Ma: ”Should we try measuring it with a volt-meter?”

Sp: ”Yeah we’d better(...) Hm, it should give more than 2 volts when we have four cells”

Sp: ”But we have put them in the right order, right?”

Sp: ”Yes, let me see. Oh, aha... Now I see a problem. It needs chang- ing here. I thought that didn’t make a difference but it totally does” (replacing the wires to the volt-meter)

45 In this dialogue Ma and Sp figure out that they placed the voltmeter wrongly, so it only measured two of the cells. Later in the episode they realise that one of the cells is not connected correctly and breaks the circuit. When we discussed the experiment in the following lesson, Sp remembered these problems and their solutions clearly, which obviously must help her in remembering the concept of the voltaic pile in general. In other words: Sp has learned something from the experiment. This agrees with the constructivist idea that knowledge generated through problem solving leads to learning. The biggest problem with the inquiry approach was probably that I some- times forgot about it and interfered a lot with the students’ experimental work to help them ”get it right”. Both I and the students are used to fo- cus on getting good results and performing the experiment correctly, and in order to keep the schedule I sometimes returned to his way of thinking and instructed the students too much. This can for instance be seen in episode 1 (from line 50) where I interrupted the discussion in one group to get them to add a cell to the battery. Then I corrected their ideas to match more with Ørsted’s, though I could have given them just one simple question and then moved away to let them discuss it on their own. Something similar hap- pened in episode 3 when I first instructed the students on how to produce the Chladni figures (and then I remembered and left them alone). It is not necessarily a problem to instruct the students verbally during inquiry, and sometimes it is a good way to save time. But it stops the independent learn- ing through problem solving for a while when students just act according to instructions, and it prevents me from seeing what the students actually can find out on their own. In the last experiment I was more attentive of this problem, and the students mainly acted on their own ideas (see episode 9). The experiment with the wire and the compass has the highest level of inquiry with minimal guidance. The students only got the equipment and a vague goal of investi- gating what the wire does to the needle. They managed this freedom very well which might be due to the fact that the level of inquiry had changed gradually allowing both them and I to get used to it. I had worried that the students might know the results of this famous experiment already, but judg- ing from the transcript that was clearly not case. Instead they discovered the results for themselves and got results very similar to Ørsted’s, which was a success criteria in itself: When they get the same results as Ørsted through their own experience, they generate knowledge about scientific praxis and are likely to remember this knowledge. Apart from discovering the right-hand rule and that shielding does not influence the results, the most interesting thing in this experiment is probably their investigation of the reach of the effect (episode 10, l. 781-791):

46 Fu: ”Wait, I need to hold it... there right?”

Rs: ”Yes, try holding there”

Fu: ”Then try measuring how high it is. ’Cause now we have turned it down to 5 A, so that means that it’s halved, then the hight must be twice as high”

Ch: ”No, twice as low”

Rs: ”Half as big!”

Fu: ”I guess so?”

IM: ”Maybe! But wouldn’t that depend on whether there’s a linear corre- lation?”

Fu: ”But there isn’t. I don’t think it’s totally proportional, like. It’s expo- nential.”

What they discuss here is whether there is a linear relationship between the distance from wire to compass, the amount of current and the deviation of the compass needle with an inverse proportionality between distance and current. This would mean that you get the same deviation when both current and distance is halved. I believe that their theory is that: I α = c · (9) s Where α is the angular deviation of the compass needle, I is the current, s is the perpendicular distance between wire and compass and c is some constant. This theory is actually true if we considered the magnetic field and not the deviation of the needle (see section 2.5). Then I tell them to consider whether the correlation is necessarily linear, and Fu states that it is not. In the discussion of the experiment in the following lesson (episode 11) Fu shows me a coordinate system where he has plotted data from the experiment and concludes that the realtion between distance and deviation is not linear after all. I present a sketch of this diagram in figure 13. The diagram has only four data points, and when I asked the class to consider whether that is enough to make a conclusion on the linearity, the class quickly agreed that it is probably not enough. Of course the real relation is a bit more complicated (see section 2.5) than what the linear theory or the dataset can describe, but the point is, that the ideas for these theories came from the students themselves based on

47 Figure 13: A sketch of the coordinate system produced by a group in the experiment with the wire and the magnetic needle. It shows four measure- ments of the angular deviation of the compass needle as a function of the perpendicular distance from wire to compass. The data points are not real but they show the tendency in the data produced by the group. their own data. They see a relation, propose a hypothesis in the form of a model, and reject it based on a visual representation of data (although the dataset was very small). This is an example of real scientific method being performed in class with the least possible instruction from the teacher. If there had been more time I would have liked to go along with these theories and models, and let the students do the experiment again to get better data. I would also have liked them to make a similar representation of the relationship between the current and the deviation. I could also have hinted to them that the use of vectors is very relevant here and see how far that would get them (this would, however, not be meaningful for all students since some of them only had math on the C-level). I return to this issue in the discussion.

5.5 ”Role play” - Thinking like Ørsted One of the activities suggested by the HIPST group is role play as a way to help the students to think or act like a scientist. As shown in the previous section this can also be obtained through repetition of historic experiments,

48 but the role play activities are better suited to give an idea of the way of thinking that leads to experiments and their interpretation. It is a way to focus the ”philosophy”-part of HPS and the aspect of NoS that deals with metaphysics. I estimated that my students were too old to take a traditional role play seriously without feeling awkward, and therefore I chose a more abstract ver- sion. Several times throughout the sequence I asked them to ”try to think like Ørsted. How would he interpret this?”. That is obviously a difficult question, and the point was not so much to make the students answer cor- rectly as to make them think along the lines of a real scientist’s mind based on what they know about his beliefs. It is clear from the transcript that this was a difficult and unfamiliar exercise for the students, but it also had very positive effects when it worked as it started some great discussions about NoS and opened the students’ eyes to the importance of metaphysics. It also activated some students who are often more passive in my lessons when working with calculation. A good example of these positive effects is seen in episode 4 when the students discussed an interpretation the Lichtenberg figures based on their knowledge of Ørsted’s metaphysical theories. I encouraged them to associate as much as they could and while they were hesitant at first they eventually got many ideas that matches Ørsted’s: They saw the forms of nature in the figures already whilst doing the experiments and noted their resemblance to trees and water streams. Later, in the group discussion, they got to talking of photosynthesis (l. 382 and forward – after I had reminded them of what does):

Sp: ”It’s something about oxygen, ’cause it’s like branches growing from the plus-pole.”

Ag: ”That’s right.”

Sp: ”They need it in their chloroplasts, but I don’t know if they were known at the time...”

Ag: ”No, I also doubt if they knew photosynthesis.”

Sp: ”But they probably knew that trees need oxygen to grow.”

Ag: ”It gives life. Like with humans - everything that grows. Life. But what about the negative side?”

(the other group talks)

49 Sp: ”The orbit around the sun or the atom...” Ma: ”I don’t think we should bring atoms into this” Ag: ”Haha, no, Ørsted wouldn’t like that! He would be very sad...” Sp: ”The parallel lines could also look like air raising up.” Ma: ”It definitely looks like a lightning bolt!” Ag: ”That is so true!”

Episode 4 shows several things. At first it might seem like a complete unstructured throwing around of ideas, but in the end when we put their ideas on the blackboard in a scheme with a plus- and a minus-part, it actually looked a lot like Ørsted’s ideas from his article on the figures (reference [17]). The students saw many of the same resemblances in the figures as Ørsted did; branches, roots, human bodies, lightning, and they look for polarities like he did which shows that my introduction to Ørsted’s way of thinking has stuck with them and now they are actually using it. This is similar to episode 2 and to the beginning of episode 12 (l. 581 and forward) where we discussed the overall lines in Ørsted’s work. In these episodes the students show that they are capable of applying Ørsted’s very abstract ideas to concrete experimental results. Hopefully this is increasing their awareness of the role philosophy can play for a scientist. In the above quote they also try to link the battery’s ability to generate oxygen and hydrogen to photosynthesis, based on what the figures resemble. They get it wrong at first (saying that trees need oxygen to grow), but later in the episode they actually correct themselves (Ag: ”But when sunlight hits the plants... That PRODUCES oxygen”) and see how this fit better into the overall ”duality-scheme”. It is great that the students see this themselves because this will help their learning much more than correction from me. It is also interesting that the student who realises the mistake, Ag, is gen- erally very active in the ”role play” situations and makes many important contributions. This student is usually much quieter in my lessons, which I attribute to her difficulties with math and calculation. The fact that she shows great ability to discuss NoS and uses Ørsted’s theoretical framework, indicates that this approach can have advantages for students who usually have trouble with physics. Episode 4 also shows some of the issues with the approach. The main problem was that students often got stuck in discussions about what was actually known at Ørsted’s time which also happens in the quote above, when they discuss whether photosynthesis was known. Concrete knowledge

50 of which scientific facts was discovered when, is really not that important for the learning goals and it interrupts the interesting discussion of NoS aspects whenever it happens. This issue might stem from my correction of the stu- dents when they talk about electrons and atoms. As can be seen in episode 1 (lines 55-65), the students often tried to explain the results of the exper- iments based on electrons and before thinking it through, I corrected them because I wanted them to use Ørsted’s metaphysics instead. Apparently I succeeded in this, since Ma and Ag in the above quote remember that he did not like the idea of atoms, but I think it might have sometimes hindered the students in making their own interpretations. Episode 5 is also an interesting discussion which arose rather impulsively based on the ”role play” in episode 4. after discussing Ørsted’s interpretation of the Lichtenberg figures we got to talking about the viability of his method. the students found his way of thinking highly amusing and rather inspiring, but they were also very confused that an important scientist has used this, to them, very unscientific reasoning. This led to a discussion about analogies as a scientific method. I explained to the students that thinking in analogies has been a common and useful method throughout history (in hindsight I would have liked to emphasise that it is still used today - just in a different way), and I ask the students if they can imagine somewhere in scientific work where analogies might actually be useful. The responses are both varied and insightful. Ch suggests psychology where the reactions of some people are used as a model for how other people might react in similar situations, Ag suggest DNA-analysis: If the DNA is similar the creatures will also be similar, Fu mentions Darwin’s work with birds, and Ma points to animal testing of medicine. We end up concluding that analogies are probably very useful in science, to generate hypotheses for instance, but that they cannot be considered a proof, and I point out that Ørsted also did not consider his ideas about the figures to be proof of anything. This discussion is a great example of how a concrete case study where the students try to think like a scientist of the past, can lead to a discussion of relevant NoS aspects in general - such as the role of analogies in theories. This process is actually formalised in the concept of the reflection corner which produced some similar positive results in my sequence.

5.6 The Reflection Corner The main issue with the reflection corner in my sequence was not that it did not work the way it was intended, but that I often, due to practical circumstances, forgot to formalise it or chose not to - and I am actually not sure whether that made a difference.

51 As described in the former section, the general discussions about NoS sometimes came up unexpectedly. In these cases I forgot to go to the actual reflection corner. At other times I had too little time and ended up cancelling or postponing the RC in favour of the experiments, and sometimes I simply forgot to go the actual corner (at one time we were in another classroom where I had not assigned a reflection corner) when I asked the RC-questions. All of these variations are counter-productive to the idea of the RC in the version proposed by HIPST, where the RC is used to make clear distinction between what is concrete experimental content and what is NoS content. This clear distinction perhaps became a bit muddled in my sequence and while I regret not being able to follow the idea completely through, I actually do not think that it prevented the interesting discussions from happening. I generally said it out loud when I was asking RC-questions, and since I had explained the RC explicitly in the very first lesson, this might have been enough for the students to change perspective from concrete to general, since they generally had no problems with this. There was, however, a tendency for the students to mention concrete examples from the case when discussing general NoS, which is not totally in line with the idea of the RC. But it just felt very natural, and I do not think it could have been prevented by keeping a clearer line between the two parts of the lessons. An example of this from the start of episode 7:

IM: ”If you think about the things we discussed last time and today, can any of that be used to make general statements about scientific discoveries?” Ma: ”We talked about... There are some steps you need to go through to figure something out. Like, you wouldn’t invent the mobile phone in the middle ages because you’re missing the things that go ahead of this. Like the voltaic battery and the Lichtenberg figures. And also, you need some trial-and-error before you get something right.” IM: (making notes on the blackboard) ”Yes. You also said something about prejudice?” Ma: ”Yes, the prejudice of a scientist can probably also play a role. Like Ørsted, he didn’t believe in the atom. Perhaps you often look for explanations that avoid the things you don’t believe in. So you can say no that’s not true, without even checking.” IM: ”Do you think it is possible to make science without prejudice? And wouldn’t that be best?” (mumbling agreement) Ch: ”It is physically or theoretically possible, but...”

52 Fu: ”It’s not practically possible. A theory always builds on a hypothesis.”

IM: ”Yes. Is that not a pity?”

Rs: ”But if you don’t believe in anything, then you would never know what to look for.”

Even though Ma refers explicitly to Ørsted in her explanation, she makes some important statements about NoS which actually get really close to the learning objectives (which I will return to soon). In general this discussion shows some very positive results of using the RC. The students formulate nuanced statements about subjective ideas and the role they play for research and hypotheses. Ch and Fu figure out together that science without prejudice can be an ideal but is probably not practically possible. And Rs nuances this by adding that prejudices or initial beliefs are relevant when choosing a research question. Later in the discussion Fu says ”I think it has a lot to do with the philosophical. In relation to this with how the inside and the outside are connected, and music, how art is connected to the rest”, and I help them to link this to the cultural paradigm in Ørsteds time, which led them to consider the paradigms of today, which is also very relevant for the learning goals. Actually, I do not know how I would have gotten the students to con- sider these central aspects so explicitly and actively without using the overall HIPST strategy. And the relevance of the RC is definitely that I would not have addressed these issues so explicitly if I had not been aware of this tech- nique - even though I failed to use it perfectly. But the RC is not the only way to make the students talk about general NoS. It actually often happens naturally when discussing the case study, as the discussion about the analog- ical method shows. This is also evident in episode 8 where we talked about Ørsted’s failure in Paris. Here the students gave many interesting perspec- tives on why mistakes like this can happen but also what the consequences can be. This discussion would have fit well into the RC but it also worked well without it.

5.7 Evaluation: The Learning Objectives As can be seen in the introduction to section 4, the objectives of the sequence were not too concrete since part of the plan was to be open to any learning about the scientific process that might happen. However, I created the se- quence with the main focus: How is scientific knowledge created?, and the intention was to incorporate three aspects in the answers to this: That the

53 scientific process is messy and non-linear, that science is connected to culture and that subjectivity plays a role in science. It was intentional that I generally only addressed the learning goals in open questions, since I was trying to avoid bias. I know from experience that the students tend to adapt my view of science and my formulation of it (which is sometimes a good thing), but in this case I wanted to obtain the students’ own ideas of the issues that relate to creating scientific knowledge. In the lessons I mainly got to hear about these ideas in RC-discussions and other group discussions. For each individual student I also obtained their answers to the writing exercises from the beginning and the end of the sequence. These exercises explicitly ask NoS questions related to the objectives, see Appendix A, and I will present the answers to them. As shown in this section, many of the ideas and opinions expressed by the students in class were actually related to the learning goals, indicating that the chosen case and material is relevant. More than once a student mentioned that science is a ”trial-and-error process” where you can not expect to get useful results the first time, and in episode 13, where I asked about what it takes to make new discoveries, Rs stated (l. 1011) ”It takes a good amount of stubbornness. You can’t give up too fast (...) You shouldn’t go into science with the idea that everything you du will be correct and successful.” Fu adds to this that luck also plays a role - like Ørsted who was first unlucky with his results in Paris (he saw something which was not there) but later lucky with his great discovery. Remarks like these show that the students include randomness and fault in their understanding of the scientific process. The students also often commented on the meaning of context for science. Ma points out in episode 7 (l. 513-515) that the scientific development is like steps or building blocks, where each discovery influences what is possible in the next. Ch remark in the end of episode 1 (l. 165-167) that it seems electricity was a scientific ”fashion phenomenon” at Ørsted’s time and suggest that ”if this had not been a thing, Ørsted would probably have worked with something that was not at all correct”. But in episode 13 the students agree that working against current trends can also be useful: ”He (Ørsted) has questioned that which... the norm. Or that which is agreed to be right. It might be harder today, but I think it can be good that once in a while someone comes and questions the established knowledge (...) To put it to test” (Rs l. 987-990). And in episode 7 Ag states that ”explanations are only a loan. In the next generation there will be something else which is a bit more correct. You don’t have the entire truth, you only have the best explanation that this time can offer.” (l. 537-540). There were no clear remarks on the way culture might influence science, but that science is also a product of its time - like culture - seems to be an idea the students accept.

54 Regarding the subjective element in science, the students pointed to the influence of ”prejudice”, meaning ”what you hope to find”, in theories and experiments (see section 5.6). In episode 7 and 8 they agreed that prejudice can have the consequence that you see the things you hope to see in an ex- periment - and not what really happens. Ch referred to this as ”confirmation bias” (l. 621). But Rs also pointed out that having a theory you want to prove is a great starting point for science: ”If you don’t believe in anything, then you would never know what to look for” (l. 591). In general the se- quence has been successful in getting the students to consider and express independent thoughts and theories about NoS, though I can not say how many of their ideas actually originated in the case study, and which were there before the sequence even begun.

The Writing Excercises The writing exercises provide some information about how the students’ views changed over the sequence - and in that way, perhaps something about what they learned - since the questions were the same before and after the sequence (see Appendix A and the answers in Appendix G). However, a change in a students answers does not necessarily mean that his views of NoS changed as well, since the students probably believe that they are ”sup- posed” to answer differently the second time, and hence write something with relation to the sequence. Here I provide a short overview of the changes in the answers and how they relate to the objectives of the sequence.

Question 1. How is new knowledge created in physics? Before the se- quence, the answers to this questions went in many different directions which is not surprising for such an open question. One recurring answer, how- ever, show that the students were familiar with the hypothetico-deductive method. As Sn writes: ”I believe physicists had a theory about something and then they proposed a hypothesis. Afterwards they would test this hy- pothesis through experiment”. 5 out of 8 students gave answer relating to this method, which is a commom description of scientific method in Dan- ish high school 11. The model is a very useful introduction to NoS, but it is of course also very idealised and simplified compared to the real work of scientists, which is a fact that the students seem to be generally unaware

11See for instance the many books on the subject AT which is a mandatory method/project subject. A commonly used book for this is the e-book Primus from Systime iBog: https://primus.systime.dk last visited 5/6 2018

55 of in their first answers. Some of them do however nuance this model a bit by mentioning the need for peer-review (Sn) or repetition of the experiment (Sp). A few also mention coincidence as a factor, and 3 students mention that the process starts with wondering or curiosity: ”It probably has something to do with curiosity in general, but also very often about coincidence” (Ag). Other suggestions include the factors of economy, technology and personal beliefs which show that some of the students were aware of some dependence of science on social factors. After the completion of the sequence, the answers were more alike and generally related to aspects from the sequence. 7 out of 8 students now give answers that describe the scientific process as a trial-and-error process where you can not expect to get it right in the first attempt. They all still mention that you should start out with a hypothesis, but now 4 students mention that this will probably be based in a subjective belief system - and that this is a prerequisite for scientific work: ”You need to have an approach (...) a mis- sion, an objective, a call from God, a commission or a work. A life’s work.” (Ch). Then the ”hard work” begins with ”numerous tests of the proposed hypothesis” (Sn) or ”a process of trial-and-error (and repeat) where different elements are tested one at the time” (Ma). 7 out of 8 students also mentioned that new knowledge is created on the basis of already established knowledge and new discoveries, and some mention that the right network or connections can also play a role: ”New knowledge can arise when you build on the work of others, if they have made the ground work” (Ma). But some (Rs, Ma) also mention that new knowledge is created when you ”question the knowledge of your time” (Rs). Sn also mentions luck as a factor. All in all the answers suggest that the students had a basic idea os the scientific process in the beginning, but that the sequences has added bits to their understanding. At the end they present a more realistic image of the scientific process where they include mistakes, blind-alleys and dependence on the work of others.

Question 2. How is science (especially physics) related to tenden- cies in culture and society? In the first writing exercise the answers to this question actually focused a lot on the influence that science has on soci- ety, which I had not anticipated. Being so focused on the opposite effect in my sequence, I had not realised that the question was open to that answer as well, but these answers are actually also telling. They show that the students see the main connection between society and science to be that science affects society in different ways: Research in global warming changes climate politics and consumerism (Sp and Sn) and knowledge of mechanics and electricity has made way for most of the technology that modern society builds on (Fu).

56 They also generally see a clear dichotomy between science and culture, espe- cially religion, with science as the ”winning” side. Sp writes: ”A long time ago everything was explained by religion and superstitious myths. When sci- ence broke through it meant that society was completely changed [...] More and more people become atheists because religion is no longer needed to ex- plain different phenomena”. Similar thoughts are expressed by Th, Sn and Ag. A few do, however, also point out that science is in itself a culture and that it has changed through history: ”Through time there has been different interpretations and opinions in science” (Th), and Ch mentions that work in science can be affected by ”trends” in society. At the end of the sequence, almost all of the students incorporate in their answers that the culture, and more specifically philosophy, can also affect science. This is not surprising since I had in the sequence emphasised the influence that romanticism had on Ørsted’s work, and Ørsted is also men- tioned as example in some of the answers. The students seem to agree that philosophy mostly affect the mindset and the generation of hypotheses. Ma: ”Physics is affected by the time period of the world. The philosophical and maybe religious thought that flourish at that time will be expressed in what is searched for in physics, and then you already have a basis for what you want to find”. In this way the students also point towards a subjective element in science: ”Tendencies in culture can give curious souls the right approach to investigate something that they were wondering about” (Ch). Th, Ma and Ch use the word paradigm about this cultural influence on the work of the individual. The changes in the answers to this question suggest that the students have to some degree changed their views in accordance with the learning goals. It should be noted, however, that some of this just might be a repeating of what I have said in class - although most of it was worded by a student before I emphasised it or put it on the blackboard. It should also be noted that after the sequence two students still focused on the ability of science and technology to change society.

Question 3. What is your biggest unanswered question about how scientific discoveries are made? Try to be as specific as possible. This question was kind of a wild card, and I did not know what it might show, but I wanted to keep it because it is in a way the most open question to ask about this subject. It is a question which the students can not try to answer ”correctly”. Their answers were very diverse but mostly focused on NoS aspects (only Fu asked a content related question about superposition and quantum mechanics), and interestingly some of them were related to the content of the sequence - even from the first writing exercise. Sn and Ch

57 asked how you come up with a hypothesis, and Th asked if philosophy might play a role in the understanding of ”truth”. Sp and Ag asked about how you find the right experiment or method to test your hypothesis. The case study of Ørsted actually suggest answers to all of these questions, which can also be seen in the students’ answers in the second round of the writing exercise. As explained above, some of the students partly answer the question about how hypotheses are generated in question 1 or 2, and Sp actually uses question 3 the second time to reflect on this rather than to pose a new question: ”I still think it is pretty wild, how you get a thought in your head which you choose to examine. But after this sequence it makes much more sense to me than it did before. Especially concerning how it can be the influence of other discoveries that make you think of new solutions.” In question 2 (the second time) Ch reflected a lot on the influence of philos- ophy on science, and how a certain world view affects scientific work of the individual - with Ørsted as example. That this theme has really stuck with him can also be seen in his more general answer to question 3: ”Is it possible to make discoveries if you have no fundamental world view [to work from]?” Other questions were not very related to the sequence, but they show some really interesting NoS-related considerations, that would be great to work more with in another sequence. A few students ask about the certainty of scientific knowledge and wonder how we can ever know that something is ”100 % correct”. Others ask about the formalisation of discoveries and how the results of an experiment turns into a mathematical law - both these questions could be really interesting to work with in an HPS sequence.

5.8 Advice for designing a sequence on HPS This is a brief summary or overview of the concrete strategies for implemen- tation of HPS that I have found useful and/or difficult to use in my project. My hope is that it can function as a kind of manual for teaching the for those who might be interested it trying it.

1. Focus on NoS. HPS is not neccesarily a superior strategy for teaching concrete scientific knowledge, but it is a very affective way to teach about the process of knowledge aquisition: Generation of hypoteses, the experimental metod, data interpretation and other aspects of the nature of science (NoS). A sequence on HPS can shift the focus from factual scientific content to the process of science. Since the students

58 are probably not used to seeing science this way it is important that this shift is explicitly explained and justifyed to them at the beginning of the sequence.

2. Make it a case study. It is very useful to build the sequence up around a case-study such as the evolution of a specific physical concept or the life’s work of a famous scientist. This provides a natural structure for the sequence and emphasises the process aspects of science, and it gives the sequence a narrative character which is easy for the students to grasp and relate to.

3. Use student-centred activities and inquiry in the design. The inquiry approach is a way to let the students generate their own knowl- edge about a certain subject through open experimenting and inter- pretation. The approach does however demand a certain balance. If there is too much inquiry in the activities, the students will lack the guidance they need to get anywhere.

4. Replicate historical experiments. Historic physics has the bene- fit that most of the experiments demand only simple equipment that the students quickly understand and sometimes even build for them- selves. This means that the students get to follow in the footsteps of the researchers and experience the process of discovery for themselves – which would not be possible with more recent research.

5. Use variations of role-play and discussions. Role-play refers to any activity where the students try to imagine what a historic scientist would think or say about a certain subject. If the students are up for it, they can really act out the roles of historic characters and for instance recreate a historic debate with their own words. But if that seems too awkward, the teacher can just give instructions for more abstract role-play, such as “Imagine what XX would say about this phenomenon/claim and discuss it in groups”.

6. The reflection corner. An applicable method for addressing NoS explicitly and generate meta-cognition about the subject, is to have a corner at one end of the room from which all discussions on NoS is initiated. The teacher will go to this corner when asking more gen- eralized questions about the NoS content of a concrete experiment, thereby helping the students to distinguish between experimental work and generalized ideas about science as a discipline.

59 7. Mathematical models and laws. It can seem difficult to incorpo- rate mathematical modelling of historic discoveries, since the modern explanation is usually different from the ideas presented at the time of the discovery. An idea is to let the students look for patterns and systems in the data they get, regardless of how far this is from the “proper” explanation, and then discuss this process in the reflection corner.

8. Be careful with original publications. Reading original publica- tions by historic scientists can be an interesting view into the process of discoveries of the past, but there is a high risk that outdated vocab- ulary, syntax and style prevents the students from getting any scientific content out of the texts.

6 Discussion: Is Teaching HPS a Relevant Option in Danish High School Physics?

It only takes a quick glance in the most used school books for Danish high school physics (such as Orbit from Systime, Spektrum from Gyldendal and Aktiv Fysik from L&R) to realise that HPS does not take a up a lot of the pages. The history of certain important discoveries such as the structure of the solar system, gravity and Bohr’s atomic model is mentioned but only as a short introduction to the ”real content” of the subject. If we take the books to represent the main content of a high school physics class, it is obvious that HPS is not given a very prominent role. There is no final answer to why this is the case, but according to HIPST, the same tendency is seen in all of Europe. A study by H¨ottecke and Silva [1], which I will get back to in this section, shows that the reasons are diverse and include the teachers’ skills and beliefs, the subject culture and the institutional framework. In this section I will use a discussion of my own case study as a starting point for a discussion about the possibilities and relevance of incorporating more HPS in high school science teaching in Denmark. I have already described the great potential of the HPS strategy according to the HIPST project (see section 3.3), so here I will focus on the indications of my own project: Which possibilities and especially challenges of using HPS do my results point towards?

60 6.1 My own Results As can be seen in the analysis, my data generally suggest that the historic case study of Ørsted and the use of concrete inquiry and HIPST techniques has resulted in some degree of learning about certain NoS aspects of science: That cultural and philosophical developments can affect scientific work, that errors and mistakes play a role in the process, and that most discoveries are not the result of one person’s independent idea, but is linked to many other scientific discoveries. At least the students’ comments in class and the change in answers to the two writing exercises show this tendency, and the fact that I used inquiry strategies to obtain this, suggest that actual learning in the constructivist sense has happened. More often than not, the answers I was looking for came from the students as their own reflection on the material - rather than as an explanation given by me. The experiments seem to have added to this learning since many of the discussions about NoS were based on experimental work. I also observed a high degree of enthusiasm and interest in the students’ part (compared to other physics lessons) and a few of the students who are usually more drawn back were more active than usual in this sequence. In these aspects my results are in line with the HIPST results, and it can be concluded that a historic case study is applicable to Danish high school and that it is possible to teach some relevant aspects of NoS this way. It is important to note the word ”some” here as my sequence has also shown shortcomings in certain important aspects of the nature of physics; especially the relation to mathematics. A very central element of physics is its tight bond to mathematics; experiments can never stand alone and conceptual understanding will only get you thus far. As Galileo pointed out, mathematics is the language of physics and there is no deep understanding of a subject if you do not understand the language of it. In the answer to the main question of my sequence How is scientific knowledge created the element of formulating mathematical laws or models can therefore not be left out, but my sequence actually is not very concerned with that issue and mathematical description did not play any central role. It did come up a few times in the sequence, most notably when I encouraged one group to test their idea of direct proportionality between the displacement of a compass needle and the distance to a current carrying wire, and they made a graph of it (see fig. 13). The students also noted a linear relation between the number of cells and the voltage in the voltaic battery, and in the last lesson I briefly explained the modern mathematical representation of Ørsted’s discovery of the magnetic influence of a wire. But in hindsight it is clear that I never followed these openings for discussions about mathematical description

61 through, or addressed the NoS of this aspect more explicitly - though it could have been really interesting to find out which learning prospects that might have. And, as mentioned in section 5.7, some of the students even expressed an interest in this in the writing exercises. There are a few reasons why the sequence was not completely successful in this area. Firstly, I had not focused on this aspect in my planning and when I realised the relevance it might have, my time with the students was too limited to incorporate it fully. The RC-questions took up a lot of time, partly due to the fact that I have no experience with managing that kind of discussions, and since there were no RC-question about mathematical modelling, it easily slipped to the back of my mind. Having an RC-question about mathematics might have solved this, but that is related to another issue: The case study of Ørsted seemed to be a bit ill suited for mathematical explanations on the B-level. At least the modern explanations of Chladni figures, Lichtenberg figures and electromagnetism (see sections 2.4 and 2.5) are way too complicated for physics on the B-level in high school (though probably very interesting to work with on early university level) where some of the students have not even learned about differential calculus. It is very likely that the same issue might occur in other historic case studies since it is inherent in historic physics that the content of a case is often ”wrong” or incomplete with modern eyes, and the modern explanation is too complicated for the students. It is necessary to be aware of this when planning lessons with HPS. There might, however, be a rather simple solu- tion for this in the general HIPST approach, that my sequence could also have benefited from: If the focus is kept on NoS, the modern explanation is not necessarily relevant, but that does not exclude the possibility of working with mathematical models. It demands some planning, but in most cases it is probably possible to let the students develop their own mathematical description of their data through inquiry - much like one group in my se- quence did with the deviation of the magnetic needle. It would require some guiding and should of course be followed up by a more general reflection (an RC-question) on the role of mathematical laws in science to meet the require- ments of the HIPST, but it is definitely possible. Such an approach might often be based on the models that the scientist in question also worked with: In my case that could for instance be Ørsted’s way of describing the parabo- las he believed to be the basis of the Chladni figures (see [19]) or Chladni’s original equation which relates the frequency of the modes of vibration to the numbers m of diametric nodes and n of radial nodes on the plate:

f = C(m + 2n)p (10)

62 Where p is a constant that relates to the form of the plate. This is a rather simple equation that can be tested or, even better, discovered by the students if they are given enough time. The point here is that they do not necessarily need to come up with the right model (Chladni’s model turned out be faulty as well) - it is the process of developing the model and the reflection on the process that can generate the desired learning. In that perspective it might actually be an advantage that the scientific content of the material is not even accessible to the students, so that there is no confusion about the objective. All in all it is also a question of priorities. My sequence took up half a lesson more than I had expected, and to incorporate mathematical models would have taken much more time. In hindsight I would have made this a priority and left some other elements out, but my results indicate that the six lessons were mostly well spent for the objectives I had chosen. In general it should, however, be noted that limited time and resources is a challenge for the use of both inquiry and HPS when the teacher also has a list of concrete learning goals from the official curriculum to attend to. In the following I discuss the challenges of the physics curriculum in relation to HPS.

6.2 The Inclusion of HPS in High School Physics With the challenges of my sequence in mind, the overall results still indicate that the use of history and philosophy in physics teaching is an efficient and interesting way to teach many different aspects of NoS in a Danish high school physics; from metaphysics to the process of experimenting, from mathematical modelling to scientific cooperation. The next question is then whether it is possible to incorporate this more in the actual physics lessons and teaching material? According to the analysis presented by H¨ottecke and Silva, one of the main reasons why HPS is generally not very common in science teaching, is that the institutional/legal framework prevents it. In the curricula studied here, the problem seems to be that HPS is often mentioned in the overall abstract objectives but not as a part of the concrete scientific content. This is a problem because ”teachers usually are guided strongly by curricula if they have the character of to-do lists” [1, p. 303]. This means that when faced with limited time and resources, the teacher will tend to prioritise the concrete content-related objectives rather than the more abstract and generalised. The main institutional framework in Denmark is the curricula (or lære-

63 planer) provided by the ministry of teaching 12 which seem to show the same tendencies as the curricula studied by H¨ottecke and Silva. While most of the curriculum focuses on concrete scientific content (”kernestoffet”) and learning goals related to models, experiments, calculations and IT, there are few points that might benefit from the use of HPS in the way that HIPST proposes. These can be found in the more abstract objectives ”Identitet” and ”Faglige m˚al”.History or philosophy of physics is never explicitly men- tioned, but one of the overall objectives is that the students should be able to ”demonstrate knowledge about the identity and methods of the subject”, and the human perspective is mentioned as a relevant part of this identity. This is a requirement for meta-reflection about NoS which could by obtained through HPS. About the interaction between science and culture the curric- ula specifically state that the student should learn to ”relate the contribution of physics to understanding of natural phenomena as well as technology and sociological development” and ”treat problems in relation to other subjects”. It is mentioned that the most relevant subjects here are mathematics and social studies, but a sequence like my own would also easily fit these require- ments. So while the curriculum is definitely open to the use of HPS, it is never explicitly required or even encouraged, and it is not surprising if most Danish physics teachers do not see the need for it, as long as it is not more promi- nent in the curriculum. How to obtain the abstract objectives concerning the method and identity of physics as well as meta-reflection on these aspects, is actually left to the individual teacher to decide. The most concrete in- struction relating to this is that ”There must be at least one sequence where the students investigate a problem and develop and assess solutions where the knowledge and methods of the subject is used”. The lack of concrete guidance or instruction on how to teach these things imply the risk that they are neglected in the actual teaching situations, especially since the article by H¨ottecke and Silva suggests that most science teachers simply lack the necessary skills or knowledge to teach them. Though most science teachers agree on the relevance of historic science, they do not know any concrete strategies for applying this to the lessons, and they are most likely not aware that HPS is a great way to obtain the NoS objectives [1, p. 299]. It therefore seems reasonable to propose an inclusion of more concrete strategies regarding HPS in the physics curriculum. But how to do that? Danish professor of didactics Carl Winsløw has written about this in his

12The curricula can be found at the web page of the ministry of teaching: https: //uvm.dk/gymnasiale-uddannelser/fag-og-laereplaner/laereplaner-2017/ stx-laereplaner-2017. I have mainly looked at the curriculum for the B-level, but most of the abstract objectives are the same for all three levels

64 book Didaktiske elementer [29]. The process of adding content to the cur- riculum, and of modifying new knowledge to fit into textbooks i called the external didactic transposition, as opposed to internal didactic transposition which concerns the work each teacher does when adapting the content of the curriculum to a concrete teaching situation. The process of external transposition is ultimately governed by political institutions, the ministry of teaching and its administration, but other institutions such as universities and private companies can also play a role. When the content of the curriculum for a subject is decided, the choices will be related to what we can call the issue of justification, which means the reasons given for even teaching this subject to begin with. In the natural these reasons often fall into three groups [29, chapter 3]:

• The product properties. These concern the scientific content knowl- edge that the student gets from the subject: Explanations of concrete scientific phenomena such as the rainbow or electric current. This jus- tification can be related to the practical functions or the aspect of self-cultivation (dannelse) of the knowledge.

• The process properties. This relates to the all the methodological aspects of the subject from concrete experimental procedures to the overall theory of science. It can be methods that are only relevant in scientific research but it can also be more generalised methods of for instance systematic testing or organising.

• The external function. This is related to the function of the subject in society - how society benefits from educating people in this specific subject. In the case of physics this will often be related to engineering or research in the areas of energy resources, climate change, transportation or medical physics.

In this model the first two categories are mainly internal, meaning that these properties are often seen as useful within the educational system: Knowledge builds on knowledge and to get an education one must learn in steps. The last category is more concerned with what happens after grad- uation, but also how the skills taught in school can be useful in everyday life and for society as a whole. At first glance it seems that an HPS sequence like the one presented in this thesis is only related to the process properties of physics, and it is of course true that the NoS aspects that HIPST focus on, are a part of the methodology of physics. But in a broader perspective, the skills taught in HPS actually also have value for society. Though most high school students do not grow up to become researchers themselves, they

65 still live in a knowledge society where they are met with an unfathomable amount of information each day, and if they do not even know the difference between scientific knowledge and subjective claims, how can they even begin to sort in this? It is therefore very useful for a democratic society in the age of the Internet that most people are familiar with the basic concepts of science methodology. That HPS has all sorts of great properties for the individual and for self- cultivation (or dannelse) or cultivation of society is probably something that most physicists would agree on. But according to Winsløw the arguments relating to external functions of science teaching are often more popular with the politicians who ultimately decide the curriculum. An example is the national tests, like the PISA tests, which focus on the students’ ability to use their knowledge and especially their problem solving strategies in society. If HPS is to play a more prominent role in Danish high school physics, this might be the argument we need to bring to the attention of the politicians and experts in the ministry of teaching.

7 Conclusion

The aim of this thesis was was to design, test and evaluate a HIPST-inspired, inquiry based teaching sequence on H. C. Ørsted’s scientific work, in order to investigate whether such a sequence is effective for learning about certain aspects of NoS and the scientific process. Research in science teaching has long pointed to the benefits of using HPS as a strategy for studying science, and recently the European collaborative project HIPST has developed a number of strategies for concrete implemen- tation of this in teaching situations. The theory is that while HPS is not neccesarily a superior strategy for teaching factual content, it is one of the most effective ways to study science as a process: Through repetition of his- toric experiments and interpretation of their results, the students actually experience the process of discovery for themselves. This is proposed as a way to make the school subject of physics much more similar to the field of research. Through meta studies on the use of HPS in science teaching and numerous concrete case studies, the HIPST group has obtained data that support this idea. The sequence presented in this thesis was designed with a basis in the constructivist view on learning. This means that most of the activities were designed to help the students generate their own knowledge through problem solving, discussions and inquiry based experiments. Most of the concrete strategies were inspired by HIPST, such as replication of historic apparatus,

66 role-play and the reflection corner. The centre of the sequence is the question How is scientific knowledge created, and though I have kept the learning goals rather open, I have aimed to make the students see 3 specific things in the answer to this: That the scientific process is often non-linear and marked by mistakes, that the interaction with culture plays a role for scientific discovery, and that subjectivity is inevitable in scientific work. The case of Ørsted’s scientific work was mainly chosen because it is well suited to fulfil these learning goals. Ørsted was guided in all of his research by a metaphysical framework inspired by German Naturphilosophie which played a major role in his discovery of electromagnetic effects, but also lead him on the wrong track in some of his work. He had a rough start to his career as he tried to convince the commission of the Napoleon Price in Paris that the earth has electric poles, in one of his first attempts to prove a relation between electricity and magnetism. Later he tried to prove a relation between electricity and sound waves in his experiments with Chladni figures, and he had looked for the patterns of Lichtenberg’s electric figures in all of nature, before his historical discovery of electromagnetism in 1820. Ørsted’s way of thinking presents an approach to science which is very different from what the students have experienced before. The transcripts of the lessons show that most of the chosen strategies worked very well: The inquiry experiments were successful in the sense that the students were able to administrate their freedom to obtain interesting and relevant results which were often similar to Ørsted’s; the abstract role- play provided an opportunity for the students to interpret and discuss their results in relation to an overall philosophical framework; and the reflection corner was an effective way to formalise the switch from concrete experiments to more abstract discussions about NoS in physics. The students were gen- erally enthusiastic and played an active part in their own learning, and the discussions indicated that their view of physics changed over the sequence in accordance with the learning goals. This was supported by the writing exercises which show that the students have incorporated some new aspects in their understanding of physics over the sequence. They went from describing the process of scientific discov- ery merely by the hypothetico-deductive model to including the concepts of mistakes, cooperation and the dependence of science on cultural and philo- sophical viewpoints. After the sequence they express a better understanding of how hypotheses are created and the role that subjective ideas play for this process. The less successful elements in the sequence were the reading of original publications and my interference in the experimental work. The texts turned out (for the most part) to be too difficult for the students to understand or

67 discuss, and I often ended up explaining all the points afterwards. From a constructivist point of view this element will therefore have added very little, if anything, to the students’ learning. A similar problem occurred in some of the experiments where I focused too much on getting the students to my intended goal by explaining how I wanted them to work and thereby counteracting the idea behind the inquiry approach. Apart from that my sequence has the main flaw that it does not really emphasise the crucial role of mathematical models in physics. I had not been sufficiently aware of this aspect in my planning, and though situations where a discussion of mathematics was relevant, did occur, I never managed to facilitate any meta-reflection or discussion of this issue. In hindsight I would have wanted to implement simple mathematical modelling as a part of the sequence. All in all my results indicate that science teaching in Danish high school would benefit from the use of HPS, if we want to teach a more realistic and process-oriented view on physics as a discipline. But that does not neccesarily mean that it will be easily implemented in physics lessons throughout the schools. Traditionally HPS has played a very small role in physics teaching and textbooks and these habits are hard to change. A good place to start this process would be the curriculum which already demands a focus on central NoS related aspects of physics, but does so in rather vague and abstract terms, whilst being much more concrete about the factual content. If concrete strategies for HPS such as the ones presented in HIPST and in this thesis could be implemented in the curriculum, it might aid the teachers and the writers of physics textbooks to focus more on this part of the subject. This would not only be beneficial for students who pursue a career in the natural sciences, but for all students who grow up to be citizens in a knowledge society where the understanding of what ”scientific” really means is perhaps more relevant than ever.

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72 Appendices

73 Appendix A

Writing Exercise

Skriv dine tanker og reflektioner om følgende tre spørgsm˚al.Svar i tre ad- skilte punkter.

1. Hvordan opst˚arny viden i fysik?

2. Hvordan hænger naturvidenskab (særligt fysik) sammen med tendenser i kultur og samfund?

3. Hvad er dit største ubesvarede spørgsm˚alom naturvidenskabelige opdagelser? Prøv at være s˚aspecifik som muligt.

English translation: Write your thoughts and reflections on the following threee questions. Answer in threee separate points.

1. How is new knowledge created in physics?

2. How is science (especially physics) related to tendencies in culture and society?

3. What is your biggest unanswered question about how scientific discov- eries are made? Try to be as specific as possible.

74 Appendix B

Text about Ørsted’s Dynamic System

This text was written by me and handed out to the students in lesson 1.

Ville det ikke være fantastisk at kende til detaljerne i den overordnede ”plan” for naturen? Hvordan den er styret, hvilket system af regler der organiserer dens udvikling? I fysikken arbejder man for at komme til at forst˚a disse naturens grundlæggende regler. Og det gjorde H. C. Ørsted ogs˚a,da han for 200˚arsiden forskede i lydens, lysets og elektricitetens hemmeligheder. H. C. Ørsted arbejdede selv ud fra en overordnet id´eom hvordan na- turen grundlæggende hænger sammen og hvilket system den former sig efter. Denne overordnede id´ekalde han ”Det dynamiske system”. Det dynamiske skal forst˚assom en modsætning til det atomistiske, idet man her opfatter naturens grundelementer som værende kræfter, der arbejder med og mod hinanden til at skabe stof og bevægelse – ikke partiker. Systemet er i udgangspunktet baseret p˚aden naturlære som Immanuel Kant, der ellers er mest kendt for sin moralfilosofi, udtrykker i bogen Meta- physische Anfangsgr¨undeder Naturwissenschaft. Kant mente i modsætning til mange andre (særligt franske) filosoffer ikke at naturen kan forklares ud fra et mekanisk perspektiv baseret p˚aatom-tanken, men at man i stedet skal betragte naturen som styret af to grundlæggende naturkræfter som spiller dynamisk sammen, n˚arde konstant søger at komme ligevægt. Ørsted udviklede ud fra id´eernei Kants system sit eget billede af naturen, idet han ogs˚ainddrog id´eerfra de p˚adet tidspunkt toneangivende tyske ro- mantiske filosoffer; særligt F. W. J. Schelling og J. G. Fichte. Disse filosof- fer lagde særligt vægt p˚aen enhedsforst˚aelseaf naturen. Naturen skal iflg. naturromantikerne ikke ses som enkeltfænomener med specifikke forklaringer, men i stedet som en stor sammenhængende organisme, der udspringer ud fra

75 ´etaltomfattende princip. Dette princip skal forst˚assom en abstrakt ˚andder er til stede i alt: Natur og mennesker. I Ørsteds dynamiske system er disse filosoffers tanker meget vigtige, men Ørsted udbygger og konkretiserer id´eernei naturvidenskabelig forskning. Ørsted opfattede som romantikerne naturen som en smuk, harmonisk en- hed, der udspringer af samme ˚andsom mennesket selv – alle dele af naturen og af sindet følger de samme enkle love og principper (hvilket bl.a. ses i mønstre der g˚arigen i ellers helt forskellige fænomener). I sidste instans skyldes alle disse love og principper ifølge Ørsted to grundkræfter som altid arbejder med og mod hinanden for at skabe harmonisk balance og ligevægt. Disse to grundkræfter kan ses i næsten alle fænomener i kemi og fysik: Ud- videlse og sammentrækning, syd og nord, magnetens poler, elektricitetens poler, brint og ilt, brændbart og brandnærende princip. Tænk fx p˚ahvordan magnetn˚alenindretter sig efter Jordens syd- og nordpol, og hvordan hhv. Brint og ilt dukker op fra vand, n˚arman sætter et batteris poler til vandet. For Ørsted var disse blot to ud af mange tegn p˚a,at de to grundkræfter var grundlag for alle naturfænomener. Og derfor forventede Ørsted ogs˚a,at der ville kunne findes en fysisk beviselig sammenhæng mellem alle naturens fænomener; som f.eks. magnetisme og elektricitet. Som han selv skrev i et essay fra 1803: ”for do friction and impact not pro- duce both heat and electricity, and are dynamics and mechanics not thereby perfectly intertwined?” Den overordnede ˚and,der gennemstrømmer alt i verden: Naturen, sindet og historien er i Ørsteds optik kristendommens Gud. Ikke i en snæver bibelsk definition, men som et altomfattende abstrakt væsen, der er udgangspunktet for al eksistens. Ørsted omtalte ogs˚aflere steder denne ˚andsom naturens guddommelige fornuft, der spejles i menneskets fornuft. Dette er iflg. Ørsted ˚arsagentil at mennesket er i stand til at beskrive naturen med matematik og logik; det kan vi fordi menneske og natur udspringer af samme ˚and. Man kan se spor af denne overordnede naturforst˚aelsei nærmest ethvert værk, Ørsted skrev, men mest detaljeret udtrykkes det i bogen Ansicht der chemischen Naturgesetze fra 1812. Her udtrykker Ørsted sit natursyn og sin metafysik som et tankeeksperiment, han selv er ude efter at bevise. I de følgende moduler vil vi undersøge nogle af de m˚ader,hvorp˚ahan forsøgte at gøre dette.

76 Appendix C

Experimental Guide: Voltaic Battery

Øvelse: Voltas Batteri (1799) Allessandro Volta opfandt det første gentlig batteri i 1799. Ørsted læste hans artikel og begyndte kort efter at bygge batterier selv. Nu skal vi prøve at sætte os i Ørsteds sted og følge i hans fodspor ved selv at bygge et voltabatteri som minder meget om det Ørsted selv konstruerede. Til et batteri kræves: • Kobberstænger • Aluminium- og zinkstænger • Bægerglas • Husholdningseddike • Ledninger • Voltmetre og dioder

1. Saml en enkelt celle som vist p˚afigur 1: To stykker metal ned i eddiken og ledninger p˚a- kan du m˚alenogen spænding? Hvor høj? Noter.

(a) Prøv b˚ademed zink og aluinium (b) Hvad sker der hvis de to metaller rører hinanden? (c) Diskuter hvad der sker.

2. Sæt flere celler sammen i serie - hvad m˚alerdu nu?

77 Figure C.1: Et Voltabatteri (seriekoblet) baseret p˚acitroner - andre syrer eller saltvand kan ogs˚abruges

(a) Kan du bruge strømmen til noget? Prøv med dioder af forskellig art.

3. Prøv at røre ved elektroderne med hænderne - f˚ardu stød? Tør du prøve med tungen?

4. Kan I f˚anoget ud af den gamle ørstedcelle vi har til r˚adighed?

5. Ørsted s˚aet batteri som det her kort efter det blev opfundet. Han byggede dem ogs˚aselv. Kort efter rejste han p˚asin første europatur. Hvordan tror I han opfattede denne opfindelse? Hvad s˚ahan? Prøv at sætte jer i Ørsteds sted og følg hans tankegang. Diskuter og noter.

78 Figure C.2: Ørsteds eget galvanske apparat, illustration fra en af Østeds videnskabelige artikler. Ørsted havde frembragt beholdere af kobber med zink stænger i midten. I beholderen kom han en opløsning af salpetersyre og svivlsyre. Derefter seriekoblede han elementerne med jerntr˚ad.

79 Appendix D

Ørsted’s Aesthetic

Quote from H. C. Ørsted: “Experiments on Acoustic Figures”, 1808, Journal f¨urdie Chemie, Physik und Mineralogie.

”Here we clearly see that it is not the mechanical sensory stimulation which pleases us in the tone, but the mark of an invisible Reason which lies in it. And now a flow of notes which pervades our whole being with joy. What profundity unknown to the listener is not hidden in a single chord, what infinite arithmetic in a whole symphony! And now, joined with this, the invisible forms which appear before our soul in obscure intimations while the notes flow into the ear. In truth, we can repeat with joy and triumph at the nobility of our spiritual being that what fascinates and enraptures us in the art of music and makes us forget everything while our soul soars is not mechanical stimulation of tense nerves. It is the deep incomprehensible Reason of Nature which speaks to us through the flow of notes.”

80 Appendix E

Experimental Guide: Electricity and the Magnetic Needle

Opdagelsen af elektromagnetismen I dag skal I undersøge det samme fænomen som Ørsted undersøgte i 1819: Elektricitetens indvirkning p˚aen kompasn˚al.

• Tænk først over: Hvilke grunde havde Ørsted til at forudse en sam- menhæng mellem strøm og magnetisme?

Forsøget: • I skal bruge en strømforsyning, ledning og et kompas. Ledningen skal g˚adirekte fra strømforsyningens + til -. I skal defor holde spændingen meget lav (og I f˚arhøje strømstyrker selv ved helt lav spænding).

• Nu er det helt op til jer selv at finde ud af hvordan elektriciteten p˚arvirker magnetn˚alen. Beskrivelsen af effekten skal være s˚apræcis og detaljeret s˚amuligt, og den skal have b˚adekvantitative og kvalita- tive elementer.

– I kan f.eks. undersøge betydningen af placering og retning af led- ning og n˚al,strømstyrke, afstand osv. – Husk variabelkontrol – Noter jeres observationer og prøv at udvælge hvilke der er vigtigst.

81 Diskussion • Nu skal I prøve at tænke som Ørsted. Tænk p˚aalt hvad I har lært om Ørsted i de sidste uger og prøv at beskrive for hinanden hvordan Ørsted ville forklare dette. Noter jeres tanker.

82 Appendix F

Transcription of the Lessons

The following is a transcription of 13 situations from the sequence distributed over all 6 lessons. The transcriptions include the experiments and most of the relevant discussions. There are 8 anonymised students: Ag, Ch, Fk, Ma, Rs, Sn, Sp, Th. And the teacher, me: IM Principles for the transcription:

• The transcription is in Danish and is generally very close to the stu- dents’ formulations, but I have shortened my own explanations when they were not relevant for the analysis.

• I have left out some short one-word answers, and when a student begins to say something, but then changes it to something else, it does not appear in the transcription.

• I have left out hesitation sounds (uh, eh and so on)

• When a student says “he” or “it” and it is not clear from the con- text what this refers to, I have changed the pronoun to the noun it represents.

• Text in parenthesis describes actions.

• Double line-break indicate that I go from one group to another.

• “Ø” is short for Ørsted.

83 Episode 1, ca. 30 minutes. The beginning of lesson 2. Experiment with voltaic battery. 2 groups: Sn, Ch, Fu, Rs and Sp, Ag, Ma, Th.

IM: Og I er i gang med at samle en enkelt celle først?

5 Sp: Ja IM: En enkelt celle er s˚anemt. Det er bare de to stykker metal og s˚aledninger i. Og det giver jo ikke vanvittigt høj spænding, men det burde kunne m˚ales. Sp: ja

Sn: Skal vi ikke bruge en ledning?

10 Ch: Jo Sn: Er det den her? Ch: Nej, jeg tror det er s˚adanher. Jeg tror jern er stærk og zink er svag. IM: Der er kun zink og aluminium. I kan jo prøve jer frem. Ch: Men zink er stærk, det kan jeg bare huske.

15 IM: Den ene skal bare være kobber. Ch: Kobber er svagest p˚aspændingsrækken. Jeg mener p˚aspændingsrækken. Kobber er sammen med sølv og jern. Ch: M˚ade røre ved hinanden? Jeg tror det gør en forskel. IM: I kan jo prøve.

20 Rs: Det giver 0.5. N˚arde rører, giver det ikke noget. Sp: Se IM: N˚a,I har næsten en hel volt her! Sp: Ja, men n˚arde rører ved hinanden sker der ikke noget. Hvorfor det? IM: ja, det er jo s˚adet. Det vidste Ø jo heller ikke, s˚alad os vente med det.

25 Men det viser i hvert fald at eddiken har en vigtig funktion her. Sp: Ja, der skal være forbindelse gennem eddiken. IM: Ja, men I kan jo prøve med flere celler i seriekobling

Rs: Hvordan m˚alteØ egentlig strømmen? IM: De tog elektroderne op til tungen for at se om de kunne mærke noget

30 Ch: Det lyder som en fucking genial id´e.Døde han ikke af det? IM: Nogle forsøgte ogs˚ap˚aøjne or ører, en fysiker ved navn Ritter. (Latter) IM: Man kan ogs˚avise det ved at sætte elektroderne i vand og lave elektrolyse. Rs: Hvis vi sætter en mere p˚a,skal der s˚aogs˚avære kobber i den. IM: Se p˚ategningen i vejledningen.

35 Rs: S˚aden orange er kobber? IM: Ja og den gr˚aer jern .

84 Rs: S˚avi skal have begge dele. Kan vi bruge kobber og aluminium i den ene og kobber og zink i den anden. (Generel snak om setuppet i gruppen)

40 Sp: Hvis man bytter om, f˚arman ikke noget. IM: S˚adet virker kun i seriekobling? F˚arI højere volt hvis I sætter to celler op? Sp: Ja, meget mere. Vi f˚ardobbelt. IM: Dobbelt? okay. Kan I huske det fra da vi havde om seriekoblinger? Prøv

45 men ´entil eller to til og find sammenhængen. Prøv ogs˚amed diode. Bare husk at med dioder kan strømmen kun g˚aen vej igennem, s˚aI kan blive nødt til at vende den om. Nogle af disse dioder kræver højere spænding end andre, prøv jer frem.

Rs: Jeg tager lige noget mere zink.

50 IM: Har I prøvet med to celler nu? Ch: Jeg det giver dobbelt s˚ahøj volt. Det m˚avære noget med, des mere syre, des mere strøm. IM: Ja, men er det strøm I m˚alerher? Ch: Nej det er volt. Spændingen. Jeg tror syren spiller en alvorlig stor rolle,

55 for uden den sker der ikke noget. IM: Ja, to stykker metal kan ikke s˚ameget, men hvis du stikker dem ind i en frø. . . Volta opdagede ogs˚aat syren var afgørende, en stabel metaller duer ikke. Ch: S˚aelektronerne g˚argennem syren.

60 IM: Nja, tænk p˚ahvad I m˚aler,n˚arI m˚alerstrøm. Ch: Det er elektroner. IM: Ja s˚aelektronerne m˚aønske at komme fra det ene metal til det andet. Ch: Gennem syren. IM: Nja, men I sætter jo strømm˚alerenp˚aledningen.

65 Ch: N˚a,s˚am˚aelektronerne være der. S˚avil de gerne over til kobber. Og syren skaber elektroner. IM: Ja, du er p˚arette spor, men det er lidt mere kompliceret. Men den forklaring kendte Ø heller ikke. Hvad ville I tænke hvis I var Ø og kun havde dette?

70 Ch: Jeg ville ikke vide noget som helst. Jeg ville bare læse en bog. IM: Hvad tror I Ørsted ville tænke om det her? Rs: Han ville g˚arundt og vise det, og sige ”jeg er for fed”. Ch: Han ville sige det var kunst. IM: Ja han ville nok mene at det var relateret til kunst.

85 75 (De tænker og mumler) IM: Nu det her med atomer og elektroner. Det vil jeg kalde en atomistisk tankegang. Hvordan havde Ø det med atomer? Ch: Det kunne han ikke lide. Han mente det var en sammenholdende og en ud. . . en skubbende. En kraft der frastøder gennemtrængning.

80 IM: Ja, hvordan med dette forsøg mere konkret? Der er to metaller? Det m˚avære noget med at de udløse to forskellige kræfter. Ch: Ja, men jeg ved ikke hvad fanden, han har f˚aetud af det. IM: Hehe nej, men det beviser i hvert fald at der er ikke bare en elektricitet, der er to.

85 Rs: Ja og fordi den ene bliver negativ vil elektronerne g˚aover til den anden. Ch: Ja, det kan Ø godt lide for s˚aer der en positiv og en negativ pol. IM: Kan I godt se at det støtter Ø’s tankegang.? To elektroder, to metaller, to poler. Og han synes jo ikke at det passer til id´eenom elektroner, vel? Ch: Men det gør det jo s˚aalligevel.

90 IM: Ja, men det vidste Ø ikke. Prøv at sætte flere celler p˚aog led efter en sammenhæng. I kan jo plotte det. Ch: Mener du et tredje glas? IM: Ja ja, eller et plastic-glas.

(Den anden gruppe spilder eddike fordi glassene vælter ofte)

95 Ag: Hvilken diode skal vi vælge? IM: Jeg tror det er den røde. Men sæt flere celler p˚a,hvis den skal virke. Ag: Fire eller? IM: Ja, prøv det! (Spredt snak om setuppet og apparaturet. Cellerne vælter igen.)

100 IM: Prøv at skifte amperemeteret ud med dioden. Sp: N˚ah! (Skramlen med udstyr. Snak om rengøring og materialer. Gruppe 1 har forbundet zink med zink i seriekoblingen og f˚arderfor en meget lille spænding. Gruppe to beder om hjælp til at holde alle fire celler p˚aplads, s˚ade ikke

105 vælter. Vi holder alle fast i en celle. De har helt overblik over koblingerne trods mange ledninger.)

Ma: Vi har zink til kobber, zink til kobber, der er rigtigt nok. Sp: Men der sker jo ikke noget. Øv. Ma: Skal v prøve lige at m˚alemed et voltmeter?

110 Sp: Ja, det m˚avi hellere. Hm, den burde give mere end to volt, n˚ar vi har fire celler. Ma: Jamen, vi har da taget den rigtige rækkefølge, ikke?

86 Sp: Jo, lad mig lige se. N˚ahaha. . . nu kan jeg godt se et problem. Det skal lige ændres her. Jeg troede ikke det gjorde nogen forskel, men det gør det s˚a

115 super meget.

(Ch prøver efter lidt overtalelse at holde elektroderne p˚asin tunge.) Ch: Det prikker eller. . . det er ligesom en smag, tror jeg. Sp: Interessant. . . Er det ikke farligt? IM: Nej, det ville kræve et langt stærkere batteri. Hvor mange volt er I oppe

120 p˚a? Sp: Det er ikke s˚ameget som jeg troede. Kun 2,9. IM: Nej, det er ikke s˚ameget. (Rs prøver ogs˚aelektroden p˚atungen.)

Sp: (om dioden) Det virker ikke!

125 IM: Virker det ikke? Øv. Vi kan lige se om det virker med dioden hos den anden gruppe. S˚akan i jo prøve at sætte elektroden p˚atungen. Elektroden virker hos gruppe 1. Sp: Ej, s˚avirker det m˚aske ogs˚ahos os. M˚aske lyser den meget lidt. Ma: Nej, det gør den ikke

130 Sp: S˚aprøv lige at bytte om p˚ade to der, s˚adet m˚aske kan virke. Please! Pissegodt, masser af lys (ironisk, for der er ikke lys.) Ma: Jeg prøver lige. . . Sp: Ja, nu er der lys! Men der er kun lys, n˚armine elektroder rører hinanden. Det giver jo ingen mening.

135 IM: Ja, det lyder godt nok mærkeligt. Prøv at tage den celle ud. M˚aske er der for lidt eddike. Sp: Men hvis jeg tage dem lidt op af eddiken bliver det bedre. IM: Ja, det er godt nok mærkeligt, det forst˚arjeg heller ikke. Men flot! Prøv at sætte elektroderne p˚atungen. Det skal være dem begge to.

140 Ma: Det er s˚auhygiejnisk! Men ok. (Hun prøver.) Ma: Det smager lidt ligesom hvis du bløder. Metalsmag. (Hele gruppen prøver. Latter.)

IM: Bemærk lige hvor jeg st˚arhenne (Reflection Corner). Mens I rydder op,

145 s˚aprøv at tænke over: Ud fra hvad vi har set I dag, hvilken betydning har det s˚a...Hvordan p˚avirker forskere hinanden med deres opdagelser generelt? Sp: Alts˚a,n˚arnogen laver s˚adanen opdagelse med strøm der løber gennem syre, s˚aer der vel nogen der gerne vil arbejde videre med det. Th: Ja, s˚aer der ligesom et nyt grundlag.

87 150 Sp: Ja, s˚abehøver man m˚aske ikke eftertjekke det selv, hvis man stoler p˚a opdageren. Og s˚akan man ogs˚asige at man m˚aske havde lavet nogle andre teorier, hvis denne opdagelse ikke var sket. Nogle andre teorier om hvad der fik frøen til at spjætte. Eller, kom forsøget med frøen først? IM: Ja

155 Sp: Men s˚ahar forsøget med frøen ligesom gjort at man s˚ahar prøvet det her. Ellers havde man m˚aske slet ikke prøvet med syre. IM: Ja, og det er jo sjovt, for det er jo et tilfælde. Hvordan mht. Ø? Han arbejdede jo ogs˚amed det her. Kan I sige noget mere generelt om, hvordan ny forskning p˚avirker, hvad man kommer til at lave?

160 Ma: Det er vel et grundlag for at lave noget nyt. Det er ligesom. . . Du kan ikke bare starte med at lave en mobiltelefon i middelalderen. Du skal have nogle ting p˚aplads først. IM: Ja, og Ø kunne ikke have brugt sit liv p˚aelektricitet, hvis dette ikke var blevet opdaget lige da han var 21 ˚ar.

165 Ch: Kan man godt argumentere for at det her forsøg er jo lavet af materialer som alle kan f˚afat i. Men nye forsøg i dag. . . det er jo s˚adannoget med at splitte et atom. Det kan jeg jo ikke g˚aind og gøre i min garage. Men det her, det blev jo lidt et modefænomen. IM: Ja, modefænomen! Ja, tror I det kan have betydning for videnskabelige

170 opdagelser? Sp: Ja, hvis noget er det nye og er blevet lidt smart, s˚aer det sjovere at arbejde med. Ch: Ja, det bliver den nye frontier, hvor der er meget nyt man kan finde ud af.

175 Sp: Ja, man gider ikke noget, hvor det meste er opdaget. Ch: Hvis ikke dette var blevet til noget, havde Ø sikkert arbejdet med nogle teorier som slet ikke var rigtige. Der var mange teorier dengang som var helt skudt i hovedet. IM: Ja, og han havde m˚aske aldrig opdaget elektromagnetismen og f˚aetal

180 den anerkendelse. Ch: Ja, det er en dominoeffekt.

Episode 2, ca. 12 minutes. The beginning of lesson 3, Discussion about the voltaic battery. The whole class.

185 (Opsamlende diskussion af forsøget fra sidst. Forsøget tegnes p˚atavlen op og stillingen forklares)

88 IM: Hvad tror I man kan se i det her, hvis man tænkte s˚adan som ørsted tænkte? Bare ud fra det I ved om Ørsted. I kender det dynamiske system. Fu: Det er nok noget med to kræfter som skubber.

190 IM: Du har fuldstændig ret. Hvordan havde Ø det med tanken om atomer? Ag: Dem kunne man ikke se, s˚ade m˚atteikke have den store indflydelse. IM: Ja, for dem kan man ikke opleve. Kræfter kan man opleve. Hvor mange kræfter opererede Ø med? Sn: To!

195 IM: Ja, s˚ahvordan kunne dette billede af de to kæmpende kræfter passe til dette forsøg? Fu: Ja, nu er det bare et skud fra hoften, men i s˚adanet søjlebatteri, s˚am˚a der være nogle kræfter som skubber elektronerne. IM: Ja, men hvordan havde Ø det med elektroner.

200 Fu: Den kunne han ikke lide. . . S˚ahan ville sige at en kraft gik igennem ledningen og s˚akunne den g˚aind i fx en pære. Og s˚aville den m˚adeen modsat kraft som skubbede den væk. Og s˚aville dette m˚aske give noget lys. IM: Det lyder meget som Ø. Godt! Jeg leder jo ikke efter endelige svar her. Men ja, han tror faktisk at effekten kommer af at de to kræfter kæmper

205 (skriver p˚atavlen). Hvordan passer tallet TO med batteriet? Sp: Det passer med de to poler. Rs: To forskellige stykker metal. Men ville Ø virkelig sige at det er en kamp? Det her positive og negative, arbejder det ikke mere sammen? I et gensidigt samarbejde.

210 IM: Det tror jeg at Ø ville være meget enig i. Han bruger udtrykket vek- selkamp, men det er et samarbejde mellem kræfterne. Der er s˚adanlidt yin/yang over det. Selvom det udtryk brugte han ikke (tegner p˚atavlen). Tanken er at n˚arto modsætninger arbejder mod hinanden arbejder de ogs˚a med hinanden. For det der skal opn˚aser en ligevægt, hvor de to kræfter

215 dominerer lige meget. Fu: Jeg tænkte bare p˚a,med den her id´eom at der er to af alt, at det ogs˚a er ret dualistisk. P˚aden m˚adeligesom yin og yang. Der er ligesom b˚ade filosofi og fysik i det. IM: Der er meget rigtigt i det. Der er to modpoler. Men et andet begreb, som var sindssygt vigtigt for ham peger lidt i en anden

220 retning... Sn: Er det den her ˚andi naturen som samler? IM: Ja, det er rigtigt. Og den her ˚andudgør en enhed.. Ligesom yin og yang, man kan ikke have kun den ene. N˚arder findes noget positivt, vil der ogs˚a findes noget negativt. Det er ligesom at knække en magnet, s˚af˚arman bare

225 en ny magnet. Du kan ikke have kun nordpol eller kun sydpol.

89 Episode 3, ca. 15 minutes. The middle of lesson 3, Experiment with the Chladni figures. Group 1: Fu, Ag, Th. Group 2: Sp, Rs, Sn, Ma. (Ch not present)

230 Fu: Nu skal I se. Th, tag den her og hold fast. Ag: Nej, nu rykker pladen sig. Th: Men skal man ikke holde under. (Skramlen med udstyr og papir. Gruppe 2 leder efter sæbe til at vaske platic- arkene.)

235 Fu: Er det s˚adan? IM: Har I f˚aetden (pladen) til at sige en lyd? Hvis den ikke siger en klar lyd, s˚avirker det ikke endnu. Fu: Jeg prøver lige igen. (Der kommer en dyb utydelig tone.)

240 IM: Prøv at stryge p˚amidten og tag gerne mere salt.

(Snak med gruppe 2 om sæbe og hvor det kan findes.)

Fu: Hvorfor skal der være harpiks p˚a? Ag: Er det for at give modstand? IM: Ja, for hvis den er for glat, s˚asker der slet ingenting. S˚aer det som et

245 stykke stof mod metal. Ag: Men n˚arjeg har spillet, har jeg aldrig synes det gjorde særligt stor forskel. IM: Har du spillet violin? Ag: Ja og cello, men jeg har aldrig vidst hvorfor man skulle gøre det der.

250 IM: Men her, der skal meget p˚a,og I skal trykke til. (Svag lyd.) IM: Ja, den kan sagtens lave en højere lyd end det der Fu: S˚ahvis man gør s˚adan,s˚akommer saltet hen mod ´en,og hvis man gør s˚adan,s˚aløber det væk.

255 IM: Ja, men jeg tror mere det er fordi du tipper pladen. Prøv at holde den stabil. (Svage lyde fra pladen, mens Fu stryger.) IM: Kunne du mærke at den var ved at sige en lyd? Man skal føle sig lidt frem til det.

260 (Efter lidt tid kommer en tydelig dyb tone) IM: Nu sker der da lidt! Er det ikke flot? (En tydelig figur dannes.)

90 Fu: Ej, hvor neueren! Jeg prøver at gøre det her ved hjørnet. (Kortvarig svag tone.)

265 IM: S˚ablev det svagere. Men prøv jer frem. Den der høje tone, I fik før, prøv at lave den igen. Prøv at f˚aden første tone rigtig god først, og husk at tage billeder. (Ny tone.) Ag: Hov!

270 IM: Det var en helt tredje tone. Fu: Det ligner faktisk en fugl! Prøv at se her Rs, nu skal du se! Rs: Det ligner lidt en død kylling. Sp: Ej, det er faktisk meget sejt, hva’? (Spiller tonen igen.)

275 IM: Prøv først at blive gode til at lave den p˚amidten, hvor den bare danner et kryds, og s˚akan I g˚avidere med de andre. Prøv at observere hvordan kornene flytter sig. Ag: Ja. Fu: Beethoven i C-mol. . . Arh, man, det gik lige s˚agodt før.

280 Ag: Lad mig prøve. (Meget snak, det er ikke til at høre, hvem der siger hvad. De diskuterer deres højde ret længe(?)) Fu: Uh, der var noget der! Prøv at gøre det igen! Ag: Det er n˚arjeg holder den vinkelret.

285 (En tone høres.) Fu: Der sker ikke en skid. Jo, der gør sgu’ da. Det er jo ogs˚aen tone det der. Ag: (Nynner tonen) Skal vi finde den? Hvilken tone det er? Fu: Ja, jeg tror faktisk jeg har s˚adan en. . .

290 Ag: S˚aholder du, Th. P˚ahjørnerne. (Tydelig tone høres.) Fu: Ej, ej, ej!! Ej, hvor ser det neueren uuud! Prøv at se Th, den laver s˚adan nogle. . . Kan du se det? Th: Mmm. Jeg har ogs˚as˚adanen guitar-tune (det er en app). Skal jeg finde

295 den. Fu: Har du det? Ja. Ag: Spiller I guitar? Fu: Jeg har faktisk lige solgt min. Ag: Fuck, hvor er I grineren. Hvorfor ved man ikke s˚adannoget.

300 Fu: Jeg spiller ogs˚atrommer og bas. I’m a musical guy. Ag: Jeg overvejer at spille cello igen. Fu: Ej, Ag, hvor er det flot, det du har lavet! (om forsøget). Jeg tager lige et billede.

91 Ag: Ja, der er jo nogen der ved hvordan de skal bruge buen. Ah,˚ det var

305 tider. (Mumlende snak om brug af app’en guitar-tune. De synger tonerne som de spiller.) Ag: Okay godt, nu holder I pladen. (Høj tydelig tone høres flere gange.)

310 Ag: Det ligner s˚adannogle, jeg ved ikke, s˚adannogle... Fu: S˚adan et spil? Ag: Nej nej, s˚adanen flamingo-boks, n˚ar den er smuldret. Kan I ikke se det? I ved, de der sm˚akugler. . . Den m˚adede bevæger sig p˚afordi de bliver ogs˚a s˚adanhelt elektriske.

315 Fu: N˚ardu spiller, s˚abegynder støvet at hoppe mega meget og s˚alægger det sig. Ag: Det er s˚adanen dans. (Spiller tonen igen.) Fu: Ej, hvor er den flot. Ej, hvor er den neueren. Det er et fucking H det

320 der! Ag: Det ligner jo ogs˚anæsten et H – kan I ikke se det? Th: Jo. Fu: Og det er jo faktisk sjovt fordi den er faktisk, man kan se at den er højere p˚ade vertikale linjer. Jeg tror fandme vi kan lave matematik p˚adet her lort.

325 Th: Det kan vi da. Fu: Ag, tror du, du kan gøre det ud I hjørnet s˚a?S˚aprøver jeg at holde her p˚amidten. Ag: Ja (Dyb tone høres)

330 Fu: Det er et dybt D. Den er fucking svær at holde. (De snakker om at Fu har en plet p˚atøjet. De ændrer position.) Fu: Du skal bare hive ned.. præcis. Vent lidt, jeg skal lige samle lortet rigtigt. (Flere dybe toner af varierende kvalitet.)

335 IM: Har I f˚aetlavet noget godt. Fu: Ja, mega. Ag: Vi lavede et megaflot H lige før! (De viser billeder og jeg beder dem lede efter matematik i mønstrene.)

Episode 4, ca. 11 minutes.

340 The end of lesson 3, Discussion about the figures. The whole class (Ch not present).

92 IM: Her til sidst skal vi lige diskutere forsøget lidt. Hvad tror I Ø s˚aI det her? Hvorfor interesserede han sig for det? Rs: Alts˚aforsøget danner jo flotte parabler.

345 IM: Ja, dem ved vi han godt kunne lide, for dem har vi læst om. Sn: Elektroner eller s˚adannoget? IM: Hvordan havde Ø det med elektroner? Sp: Han var ikke fan. . . Th: Det her med ˚andog naturen opfører sig efter logiske love. Og s˚an˚ar

350 man laver en tone, bliver det ogs˚atil noget flot. IM: Ja, n˚arman laver en ren tone, bliver det ogs˚aflot. Rs: Jeg tænker ogs˚a,symmetri. Nu var overfladen ikke helt plan , men det var symmetriske geometriske mønstre. IM: Ja, det var symmetrisk nok til at vi kunne se det. Hvordan ift. ”Vand-

355 springet” og forholdet ml. kunst og videnskab? Sp: Der er jo noget videnskab ift. parablerne. De er matematiske figurer. Og musik er jo kunst. IM: Ja, præcis. Kunst er i virkeligheden forbundet til matematik. Der er ogs˚a noget lyd forbundet til noget visuelt. Der er en forbindelse mellem sanserne

360 der. Ag: Var ikke et forløb i 1.g om fysik i musik? IM. Jo netop! Der er masser af fysik bag musikken.

IM: S˚a,I det andet forsøg, Lichtenbergfigurerne, det skal I diskutere to og to. Det er allerede blevet sagt at det ligner rødder eller grene. Og der var

365 nogen der sagde at det var lidt ligesom fibrene i stof. Det er organisk, ikke? Det som Ø s˚a,var... (Jeg tegner et skema p˚atavlen som viser den positive og den negative pol af naturen med udgangspunkt i artiklen ”On the Harmony Between Electrical Figures and Organic Forms” from 1805 (kap. 18, SSW).)

370 IM: Ved den positive pol s˚ahan noget radierende, forgreninger og ved den negative, s˚ahan s˚adancirkel som Søren fik lavet lige før. Ag: Aha. . . Sp: Cool! IM: Og s˚as˚ahan, hvis man trak lederen hen i en stribe fik man en gren-figur

375 og hvis man trak den negative leder fik man parallelle linjer. Det s˚aI ogs˚a, ikke? Ag: Det er sollyset som f˚ar grenene til at vokse! (lidt ironisk) IM: Det er ikke engang et vildt forslag, det der! Prøv at diskutere det i par. G˚aall in p˚ayin/yang tankegang. Ø ved jo desuden at de to elektroder kan

380 skabe hhv. ilt og brint, n˚arde stikkes i vand. Har det noget med planter at gøre? Diskuter dette i grupper.

93 Discussion in two groups: Sp, Ag, Ma and Sn, Th, Rs, Fu. Sp: Det er noget med oxygen, for det er jo klart at der vokser grene ud af pluspolen.

385 Ag: Det er rigtigt. Sp: Det skal de bruge i deres grønkorn, men det ved jeg ikke om man kendte det. Ag: Nej, jeg er ogs˚ai tvivl om, om man kendte til fotosyntese. Sp: Men man vidste nok godt at træer skal bruge ilt til at vokse.

390 Ag: Det giver livet. Ligesom mennesket – det der kan vokse frem. Livet. Men hvad s˚amed den anden side? Sp: Det er jo klart at. . . Haha, ja soleklart! (ironisk) Ma: H2O, det er jo vand. Har det noget at gøre? Sp: H er jo hydrogen.

395 Ag: Det er luft. Sp: Ja, det er i luften, ikke? Ag: Jeg føler man var lidt mere inde i det, da man havde kemi.

Sn: IM, vi skal bare være filosofiske, ikke? IM: Jo.

400 Rs: Jeg synes i hvert fald det ligner kornmarker eller majs eller et eller andet. . . Bølger m˚aske. Rs: Det kunne ogs˚aligne galakser. Eller fangearme.

Sp: Banen rundt om solen eller atomet... Ma: Jeg tror ikke vi skal bringe atomer ind i det her.

405 Ag: Haha, nej, det ville Ø ikke kunne lide! Han ville blive meget ked af det. . . Hvad med bindinger? Sp: De parallelle linjer kan ogs˚alige luften der stiger opad. Ma: Det ligner i hvert fald et lynnedslag. Ag: That is so true!

410 Sn: (til pigerne) Hvad har I f˚aetfiguren under plusset til at ligne? Sp: Rødder, det er jo klart. . . Sn: N˚ahja, rødder... Sp: For rødder skal jo bruge oxygen til at vokse.

IM: N˚a,skal vi høre hvad i har funder frem til? Hvis man nu var en holistiker

415 eller romantiker ligesom Ø, hvad kunne man s˚ase i det her? Ag: Men n˚arsollyset rammer planterne. . . Det GIVER jo oxygen. Sp: N˚ahja, planterne Laver oxygen. . . IM: Ja, det skulle jeg lige til at rette, men det fandt i selv ud af.

94 Rs: Alts˚askal vi bare snakke? Vi talte lidt om at de der streger der er

420 parallelle ligner en havbund eller en mark. IM: Det kunne man sagtens forestille sig. Nu tænker jeg ogs˚ap˚adet polære, alts˚aplus og minus. Vi har to ting som st˚aroverfor hinanden, som skal modsvare hinanden. Ag: Alts˚ap˚aplussiden har vi det forgrenede og p˚aden anden side har vi

425 enheden. IM: Den fortolkning er jeg meget glad for! Vi har det der str˚alerud af og p˚aden anden side det der slutter rundt om. Det ene er intern struktur, det andet er overfladen. Fx p˚aet tre. Rs: Det kunne ogs˚aligne blod˚arer

430 IM: Det kunne det sagtens. Det er ogs˚anogle blod˚arer.Det indre og det ydre skal hænge sammen, og n˚arvi har b˚adeindre og ydre som arbejder sammen, s˚aopst˚arform. Det er en m˚adeat ophæve atomer p˚a.Fordi hvis man kan nøjes med at den ene grundkraft skaber det indre og den anden det ydre, s˚ahar man ligesom skabt en genstand.

435 Ag: Det er jo ogs˚ameget smart tænkt, at noget skal skabe ting. Hvis man ikke lige tror p˚aatomer, s˚askal der være noget andet. IM: Ja, s˚askal man se p˚ahvordan kræfter kan skabe en fysisk form.

Episode 5, ca. 7 minutes. The beginning of lesson 4, Discussion about analogy as a method.

440 The whole class.

IM: Ø bruger en metode her i den her artikel, og den er der mange som helst ikke vil tale om, men han bruger en metode som hedder analogiens metode. Og den var faktisk meget normal p˚aØ’s tid. Helt tilbage fra middelalderen har man brugt analogiens metode som er, at hvis noget ligner meget noget

445 andet, s˚akam man nok overføre virkelig mange egenskaber fra det ene til det andet. Denne metode er mange steder ubrugelig i dag. Men m˚aske kan den stadig bruges til at f˚agode id´eermed? Kan I forestille jer noget hvor den metode kan bruges til noget i naturvidenskab? Ch: Jeg ved ikke om psykologi kan være et naturvidenskabeligt felt? Det er

450 jo et felt hvor vi stadig famler lidt i blinde fordi vi ikke ved hvordan hjernen fungerer. . . Al ny forskning i psykologi mider mig om konspirationsteorier: At en mand opfører sig s˚adanher i en situation kan vi pludselig koble p˚a nogle bonobo-abers adfærd. Og det kan jo godt være at det ikke har noget med hinanden at gøre!

455 IM: Ja, du tænker p˚adyreforsøg i psykologi?

95 Ch: Ja, og ogs˚aoverførsler fra en person til en anden. Fx hvordan en 45˚arig reagerer som overføres til en ung person, men videnskabeligt set er det jo to helt forskellige situationer. IM: Ja, det er p˚aen m˚adeanalogisk metode, men selvfølgelig p˚aet langt

460 smallere felt, end det Ø beskriver. Men der er noget tilfælles i det. Sagen er nok at man ikke kan bevise noget med analogier, man kan sige at noget peger p˚anoget. Ø sagde faktisk ogs˚aat han ikke beviste noget med denne teori, han viste blot hvad det pegede p˚a.En sammenhæng. Ag: Jeg tænker p˚aDNA. Alts˚ahvis to mennesker ligner hinanden i DNA, s˚a

465 minder de nok om hinanden. IM: Igen, det er m˚aske ikke et bevis, men vi bruger det til at p˚aviseen sammenhæng. Fu: Lidt i forlængelse at det Ag sagde, s˚aDarwin. Darwin startede jo ogs˚a med blot at observere.

470 IM: Ja! Analoge elementer viser en sammenhæng. Ma: Ligesom dyreforsøg med medicin. Men det er heller ikke et bevis for at det vil virke p˚amennesker. IM: Nej, netop. Men Ørsted mente faktisk heller ikke at han havde bevist noget med lichtenbergfigurerne. Han s˚adet blot som en indikation af at hans

475 teori ville komme til at holde.

Episode 6, ca. 11 minutes. The middle of lesson 4, Discussion about Ørsted’s article on Chladni figures. The whole class.

480 IM: Er der nogen spørgsm˚altil den her tekst. Noget svært, som stoppede en i læsningen (Stilhed.) Fu: Ikke umiddelbart... IM: Okay, s˚aprøver vi lige med de her klangfigurer. Hvad mener Ø selv er

485 de to vigtigste ting han har opdaget i sin forskning? Vi kan jo starte med den ene. Ch: Alts˚ai det vi har læst? IM: Ja, i det Ø har skrevet. Det skal i jo tænke p˚asom udgivne forskningsar- tikler. Han skriver for at informere offentligheden og andre forskere om sine

490 opdagelse. Og der er to ting han har set. Det er jo ikke har der har skabt disse figurer først, det er Ernst Chladni, men... Rs: Øh, han virkede ret begejstret over at han kunne m˚alenoget elektrisk spænding efter at han havde kørt violinbuen ned over pladen. Og det fandt

96 han først ud af ved at prøve at ryste det af, hvor noget faldt af, men noget

495 blev p˚a.Og s˚am˚altehan det med et. . . elektrometer... IM: Ja, han havde svært ved at m˚aledet, men han kunne se statisk elektricitet p˚apladen. Ch: Han ud med at sige, jeg har lavet to opdagelser, men jeg forst˚ar bare ikke den ene. Den anden er at al friktion producerer ikke bare varme,

500 men ogs˚aelektricitet. Men han starter ud med at sige en hel masse lort, som jeg ikke forst˚ar.Jeg g˚arud fra at det er det, du leder efter? Noget med at mekanisk displacement. Hvordan det fordeler sig p˚apladen. IM: Ja, det er netop noget med hvordan det fordeler sig p˚apladen. S˚aI selv noget om det i jeres eget forsøg sidst?

505 (Ingen svarer. Jeg forklarer om hvordan støvet flytter sig i en mængde sm˚a hop og ikke i en stor bevægelse. Hver vibration er sammensat af mange sm˚a vibrationer. Minder Ag om, at hun s˚adet samme sidst, og s˚akan hun godt huske det. Jeg snakker længe, for eleverne har svært ved at forst˚ateksten.)

Episode 7, ca. 14 minutes.

510 The end of lesson 4, RC-question. The whole class.

IM: N˚arI tænker p˚ade ting vi har diskuteret sidste gang og i dag, kan det s˚aoverføres til nogle generelle udsagn om naturvidenskabelige opdagelser? Ma: Vi snakkede lidt om at. . . der er nogle trin man skal g˚aigennem for

515 at finde frem til noget. Ligesom, du ville ikke opfinde mobiltelefonen i mid- delalderen, for du mangler det, der g˚arforud. Ligesom voltabatteriet og lichtenbergfigurerne. Man skal igennem noget trial-and-error, før man ram- mer noget rigtigt. IM: (tager noter p˚atavlen)Ja, du sagde ogs˚anoget om prejudice?

520 Ma: Ja, forskeres prejudice kan nok ogs˚aspille en rolle. Ligesom Ørsted troede jo ikke p˚aatomet. M˚aske leder man tit efter forklaringer som g˚ar uden om det man ikke tror p˚a.At man siger: nej, det passer ikke uden helt at undersøge om det kunne passe. IM: Tror I man kan lave naturvidenskab uden at have fordomme? Ville det

525 ikke være bedst? Flere: Jo Ch: Det er fysisk eller teoretisk muligt, men ellers. Fu: Det er ikke muligt i praksis. En teori bygger altid p˚aen hypotese. IM: Er det ikke lidt ærgerligt?

530 Rs: Men hvis man ikke tror noget, s˚aved man jo ikke hvad man skal kigge efter.

97 Fu: Newton opfandt jo ogs˚asit eget lort. Ligesom, hvis der er en tyngdekraft, m˚ader ogs˚avære en normalkraft. Det var en personlig id´esom var god. Ag: Hvis nu man tilfældigt støder p˚anoget, s˚ahar man jo ikke en forudind-

535 taget holdning, men problemet er s˚ahvis man gerne vil være mere sikker p˚a det, s˚ahar man jo s˚aen mening om hvordan. IM: Ja, i fortolkningen. Ag: Jeg tænkte ogs˚ap˚a:Generelt i naturvidenskab er det s˚adanmeget, der er rigtig mange kloge mennesker som ved rigtig meget, men samtidig s˚aer

540 forklaringer kun til l˚ans.I næste generation vil der s˚akomme noget som er lidt mere rigtigt. Man har ikke den fulde sandhed, men man har det bedste bud som den tid kan komme med. IM: Det lyder meget fornuftigt. Det relaterer lidt til vores forløb om kvante- mekanik.

545 Rs: Kan man ikke ogs˚atage med fra alt det Ø har lavet, at man ikke altid skal skille ting ad helt ned til det mindste? Fordi her er de meget at se to ting sammen og se sammenhæng mellem alt. I naturvidenskab i dag tror jeg meget at man deler alting op og ser p˚akun et lille omr˚ade for sig selv. S˚akan det være svært at føre det over til andre omr˚ader.S˚aman mister kulmination

550 mellem naturvidenskab og. . . ja, her er det s˚akunst, men naturvidenskab og noget... noget... IM: Der er i hvert fald den forskel at Ø arbejdede med b˚adekemi, fysik, farmaci, filosofi. S˚adanfungerer universitetet jo ikke længere. Man fokuserer i stedet p˚aet smallere omr˚ade.

555 Fu: Jeg tror der er en del indenfor det filosofiske. Ift. det her med det dualistiske og at indre og ydre hænger sammen og musikken, hvordan kunst hænger sammen med resten. Det indre og det ydre hænger sammen det betød jo meget i Ø’s forskning, og m˚aske betyder det ogs˚ameget i dag. IM: Ja, og Ø skrev jo indenfor in romantisk tid og tankegang. Han var

560 p˚avirket meget af sin tid i sin tankegang. Men m˚aske kunne han ikke selv se det? Og vi kan vel ikke vide om vi er liges˚ap˚avirkede af vores tid? Fu: Det er vi jo helt klart nok, vil jeg tro. Ch: Ift. hvilke store filosofiske spørgsm˚alsom fylder i dagens Europa. Der tænker jeg at der har været meget eksistentialisme. Den retning i filosofien

565 er jo i historisk tid ret tæt p˚aos. Og Ø skriver det her om det sjælelige og det legemlige, det er vi jo p˚aen m˚adekommet ret langt væk fra. Der er jo ret mange, alts˚ai Europa, som ikke tror p˚aGud og ikke tror p˚aen sjæl. Men det kan jo ogs˚ap˚avirke. Ligesom det jeg sagde før med, at man jo egentlig ikke ved noget om bevidsthed. Jeg tror de fleste fysikere vil sige at sjæl er

570 bare noget bevidsthed som opst˚ari hjernen. Men det er der jo ikke nogen, der ved. Man skulle tro at flere ville forske i det. Det er mærkeligt at vi ikke ved noget om noget der er s˚abasalt menneskeligt. Det er mere rent

98 naturvidenskabeligt i dag. IM: S˚ato forskelle er, at vi er p˚amange m˚aderrykket væk fra det ˚andeligei

575 videnskaben og at man specialiserer sig mere i smalle omr˚ader.Det skyldes m˚aske ogs˚aat den viden vi har er meget større og mere kompliceret, s˚a man kan ikke vide s˚ameget og s˚abredt mere. Er der andre ting i tidens populære strømninger som kunne p˚avirke forskningen? P˚asamme m˚adesom romantikken p˚avirkede Ø?

580 Ag: Det der med at der ikke er noget, der kan overledes. . . Man vil finde alle detaljer, for man kan ikke bare sige at resten kommer af naturens fornuft. Man kan ikke overlade noget til et andet felt, for alt skal kunne forklares indenfor naturvidenskaben. Hvis det skal give mening, s˚askal alt kunne forklares inden for naturvidenskaben. Man vi ikke sige noget, hvor man ikke

585 har hele forklaringen. Hvis det ikke kan forklares, s˚afindes det nok ikke. S˚a derfor vil man helst kun udtale sig om en lille detalje. Ma: Man har det vel p˚aandre m˚aderstadig ligesom Ø. Alts˚aman har nogle antagelser om hvordan verden fungerer, som man prøver at undersøge. Fx p˚aCERN, der ledte man i lang tid efter Higgs-partiklen, fordi den skal være

590 der, ellers giver det ikke mening. S˚adaner det med teorier. Men Higgs, den fandt man jo s˚a.Men allerede før det, tænkte man den m˚avære der. IM: Ja, s˚aman finder noget, hvis man leder efter det, men det man ikke leder efter er naturligvis sværere at finde. Der er formegentlig nogle ting, som man slet ikke ved at man burde lede efter.

595 Ch: Jeg tænker ogs˚a,det hele er blevet s˚aspecialiseret, s˚aden der analogiske metode med bare at koble ting til hinanden. Det er ligesom at Newton s˚a æblet og fik en id´e.Det tror jeg ikke man kan længere.

Episode 8, ca. 8 minutes. The beginning of lesson 5, Discussion about Ørsted’s failure in

600 Paris. The whole class.

IM: Hvad kunne man forstille sig at Ø kunne have gjort for at undg˚adenne fiasko i Paris? Rs: Han kunne have været mere kritisk. Det er m˚aske h˚ardtat sige det til

605 sin gode ven, men nogle gange er man nødt til at sige det, s˚adet ikke gør et fjols ud af sig selv. Ch: Han kan jo have øvet og lavet forsøget derhjemme p˚aforh˚and,men hvis han skulle være rigtig pernitten, s˚askulle han have g˚aetud og prøvet det i en park. For det kan jo være at der var noget i hans laboratorie som p˚avirkede

610 forsøget. Hvis han boede nær en jernfabrik eller hvad ved jeg.

99 IM: Ja, han kunne prøve at ændre lokationen. Sn: Jeg tænker ogs˚a,m˚aske have prøvet at snakke med andre fysikere om det inden han viste det til den komit´e. IM: Ja, det gør man ogs˚ameget i dag. Det hedder ”peer-review”, hvor man

615 f˚arnogle kollegaer til at teste sine resultater før man udgiver. Ag: Jeg tænker mere generelt ens indstilling. Hvis der nu er noget man tror p˚a,noget man virkelig gerne vil tro p˚a,s˚avil man m˚aske ogs˚atro det s˚a snart der er noget der tyder p˚aman har ret. S˚atænker man m˚aske ikke: Ej, det er nok forkert, jeg prøver lige igen. S˚aer man bare s˚aglad for at det er

620 rigtigt, s˚agider man ikke være kritisk. IM: Ja, det tror jeg er et udbredt problem. Ch: Det er s˚adanconfirmation bias, det s˚avi rigtig meget i samfundsfag i 2.g, n˚arvi skulle lave statistik. Hvis vi fik et svar vi ikke kunne lide, havde vi lyst til at smide det ud.

625 IM: Og det er m˚aske særligt slemt i samfundsfag, hvor det ogs˚arelaterer mere til personlige holdninger om økonomi og moral. M˚aske er der mere debat om den slags i videnskaber dr har med mennesker at gøre? Hvilken betydning kunne i forstille jer at dette kunne have for Ø’s fremtidige arbejde? Alts˚a, forestil jer, at det var jer selv.

630 Rs: At han m˚aske ville begynde at være kritisk, f˚akolleger til at kigge det igennem før han udgiver. Ch: Det var vel et til hans selvtillid, som var fuldstændigt. . . med dunhammer, eller hvad man skal sige. Selv 20 ˚arefter var han stadig bange for det i sine udgivelser om elektromagnetismen.

635 IM: Kan I sige noget p˚aet mere generelt plan? Noget som gælder naturvi- denskabeligt arbejde generelt? Fu: Alts˚a,det kan betyde at ens etos bliver skadet. Alts˚adet er bare mega- nederen. (Latter)

640 Fu: Alts˚a,han f˚arbare meget mindre p˚alidelighed. IM: Ja, det er en konsekvens, det kan have. Hvilke andre konsekvenser kan man f˚aud af fejl i naturvidenskabeligt arbejde? Sp: M˚aske kan man blive lidt for forsigtig med at udgive, og s˚an˚arman har noget der kunne være vigtigt for andre i deres arbejde, s˚alader man være

645 med at udgive, fordi man ikke er helt sikker p˚aresultatet. IM: Og m˚aske man venter for længe, og s˚aer der andre der kommer først. Rs: Hvis der har været en generel enighed om noget, som s˚aviser sig at være forkert, s˚akan det være svært fordi det ændrer hele verdenssynet. IM: Ja, nogle gang vil en forsker heller ikke indrømme det, n˚arteorien er

650 afvist. S˚aholder han fast i den og det g˚arud over hans karriere. Ch: laver en længere reference til et tidligere tema om kvantemekanik.

100 Ch: M˚aske kan man ogs˚atage s˚ameget fejl indenfor et felt, at andre ikke tør forske i det. Hvis nu de tænker, sidste gang nogen prøvede det her, s˚a gik det helt galt.

655 IM: Ja, det kunne man da sagtens forestille sig. Kunne der ogs˚akomme positive konsekvenser ud af at lave en fejl? Ag: Det kan jo være godt at blive mere forsigtig, hvis man ikke bliver for forsigtig. Og det kan ogs˚agive en et nyt syn eller en ny id´ep˚adet man laver. S˚akan man arbejde videre, for ligesom den teori man havde før, den

660 ødelægger det ikke, nu hvor man har f˚aetden afvist. Ch: Det kunne ogs˚agive endnu mere motivation til bare at fortsætte.

Episode 9, ca. 11 minutes. The middle of lesson 5, The EM-experiment. Group 1: Rs, Fu, Ch, Sn.

665 Group 2: Ag, Ma, Sp. (Th not present).

(Eleverne g˚arrundt og diskuterer opsætning og apparatur.) IM: Har I fundet en strømkasse? Ag: Ja og et kompas der virker. Men det er lidt spicy men... IM: Den her kasse kan jeg ikke s˚agodt lide, for man kan ikke se hvor høj

670 strømmen er, og hvis den er for lav, s˚avirker det ikke. Bare tag denne her. (Skramlen med udstyr. Jeg tager kassen fra en opstilling efterladt af en anden klasse.) IM: Bum. Vil du tage den ud s˚adan.Og der var en lille magnet, den skal I lige undg˚aat have i nærheden. I det hele taget undg˚ametal i nærheden s˚a

675 meget I kan.

Rs: Det oplader s˚ahurtigt... IM: Hvad laver I? Fu: Samler ledningerne. Ch: Problemet er at vi ikke kan se n˚alenlængere

680 IM: Jeg ser umiddelbart at I ikke har noget skriveredskab. Det vil gøre det meget svært at lave en systematisk undersøgelse af hvad der foreg˚ar. Ch: Det er meget klogt konkluderet, fru lærer. IM: TAK! og s˚asynes jeg at det er en god id´eat teste et fænomen ad gangen... Ch: Variabelkontrol! Jeg vil hente min PC.

685 IM: S˚akan i jo prøve at blive enige om hvad det er I gerne vil undersøge, ikke? Rs: Tak for det r˚ad. Altid s˚aklog. IM: Tak, det synes jeg ogs˚aselv.

101 Fu: Kan man skrue for meget op?

690 IM: Nej, det tror jeg ikke. Der er en strømbegrænsning p˚a,s˚aden ikke kan komme højere op end 10 Ampere.

Ma: Du kan godt have den s˚adanher, s˚apeger den s˚adan. Men du kan ogs˚a... IM: Selvom du drejer den, s˚apeger pilen jo altid mod Nord. Ellers ville det

695 være noget rod. Ma: N˚ahja. IM: Det man s˚akan gøre, for at overskue det er at dreje. . . Hm, det virker lidt underligt. Ag: Ja, den g˚arlangs Østerbrogade.

700 Sp: Den pegede alts˚amod nord før, m˚aske er det fordi vi tog den ind i. IM: Der er alts˚anoget galt med det kompas. Hvordan kan det allerede være g˚aeti stykker? Det er simpelthen ikke nord det der. Bordet er ogs˚askævt. Nu er det rigtigt! Prøv i første omgang at f˚aden til at st˚astille før I tager ledningen over. Ellers har jeg et andet kompas.

705 (Skramlen med udstyr.) Ag: Ej, se! IM. Kunne I se at der skete noget? Ag: Ja! (Skramlen.)

710 IM: Jeg har en større magnetn˚alher, I kan jo prøve med den.

Rs: Vi kan teste retning, strømstyrke... Fu: Nu er den lige, men det er den ogs˚aden anden vej. Rs: Den er vel altid lige? N˚alenbøjer vel ikke? Fu: Nej, alts˚aledningen.

715 Ch: Prøv at dreje ledningen rundt og s˚ase om n˚alenfølger med s˚adan symmetrisk. Rs: N˚alener jo hele tiden vinkelret med ledningen. Ch: Hvorfor er den det? Rs: Det ved jeg ikke, spørg Ø.

720 Ch: Om ledningen catcher op. Kan den indhente den. . . Nej den er igen vinkelret. Hvorfor er den det? Rs: Spørg ikke mig, jeg har haft matematik p˚aC-niveau! Ch: Det m˚avære noget med at den er fanget mellem nord og syd. Fu: Det er fordi den g˚arpræcis ml. nord og syd.

725 Ch: Og nu har du plus p˚adin venstre h˚andog minus p˚aden højre h˚and. Fu: Ja og s˚avil den altid pege mod plus. Rs: Er vi serøst ved at replicere de der elektriske poler?

102 IM: Lige nu laver i præcis det samme som Ø lavede. Han havde alts˚aikke s˚adanen (strømforsyning), men en voltasøjle.

730 Rs: Prøv at se, Ch, hvis man har s˚adanet magnetisk felt. . . IM: Men det kendte Ø til gengæld ikke noget til. Hvis jeg m˚agive et r˚ad: i stedet for at prøve at forklare det hele tiden, s˚aprøv først at finde ud af, hvad det egentlig er, I ser. I kunne jo prøve at placere ledningen p˚aforskellige m˚ader.

735 Fu: Shit, prøv lige at overveje det her. Prøv at overveje, hvor højt oppe den er. Det virker stadig (holder ledningen højt over kompasset). Ch: Det der billede du fandt af magnetfelterne, det hjalp mig alts˚atil at forst˚adet bedre. Er der sammenhæng mellem afstand og felt? Hvad fanden er det der? N˚ardu holder den s˚adander. Det kan jo ogs˚ahjælpe os til at

740 forst˚anoget. My God, mand! N˚ardu holder den p˚aden m˚ade,s˚atror jeg du fucker ledningens positive og negative pol op. Hver gang du krydser den, kommer der en lille negativ og en lille positiv pol ved siden af hinanden, og s˚abliver n˚alenforvirret. Det skriver vi ned! Fu: Dvs. nord er her og nord er positiv og syd er negativ.

745 Ch: Vi kan tegne det p˚apapir. Rs: Eller tavlen.

Episode 10, ca. 12 minutes. The end of lesson 5, The EM-experiment. Group 1: Rs, Fu, Ch, Sn.

750 Group 2: Ag, Ma, Sp. (Th not present).

Sp: S˚adet er plus og det er minus. (De viser mig forsøget) IM: S˚anordenden svinger væk fra plus? Ag: Mmm...

755 Sp: Bliver det s˚aomvendt hvis vi. . . ? Ma: Alts˚an˚arden er ovenover s˚aer det den vej. Og nedenunder, s˚aer det den vej. S˚aer det omvendt? Sp: Jeg tror det, for se, nu tager jeg den nedenunder, s˚ag˚arden. . . S˚a svinger den den anden vej. Crazy.

760 Ma: Over og under er modsat. Ag: Ja. (Snak om noget de har fundet og om hvor trætte de er. De snakker om forskellige afleveringer som ikke er relateret til emnet.) Sp: Skal vi prøve noget andet? Hvad skal vi prøve?

103 765 Ag: Prøv noget crazy! Sp: Hvad har vi ikke prøvet? Ag: N˚arjeg sætter den s˚adan,n˚arden krydser, s˚asker der ikke noget. Ma: S˚aden skal være parallel? Ag: Ja, hvis jeg krydser den sker der ikke noget. Heller ikke ovenover.

770 Sp. Jeg har den parallelt lige ved siden af sker der heller ikke noget, vel? Men hvis jeg laver en cirkel nedenunder, s˚adrejer den rundt. IM: Er I ogs˚amed p˚aat lige nu har I stort set samme metode og udstyr som Ø? (Jeg forklarer hvordan han lavede det). Sp: Men jeg forst˚arikke helt det her for den ene vej s˚avil den gerne, men

775 n˚arjeg vender den om s˚adanher. N˚ah,det virker fint. Ikke noget. IM: Har I opdaget at den kan sl˚aud til begge sider. Ma: Ja, hvis pluspolen er nær syd, s˚ag˚arden den vej og omvendt hvis man vender ledningen. IM: I kan jo ogs˚aprøve at skrue ned for strømstyrken.

780 (snak om næste emne og andre ikke-relaterede ting.) Ag: Nu prøver jeg at skrue ned til 1 Ampere and then let’s observe!

Fu: Prøv lige og vent jeg skal lige have den. . . der, ikke? Rs: Jo, hold den der. Fu: S˚aprøv at m˚alehvor højt oppe den er. For nu har vi jo skruet ned til 5

785 A, s˚advs. at det er ca. halveret., s˚am˚ahøjden være dobbelt s˚a... Ch: Nej, dobbelt s˚alille. Rs: Halvt s˚astor! Fu: Det m˚adet vel være? IM: M˚aske! Det afhænger vel af om der er en lineær sammenhæng ml. højde

790 og effekt. Fu: Men det er der ikke. Jeg tror ikke det er helt proportionalt, se. S˚adan eksponentielt, m˚aske? (de tegner kurver i luften og diskuterer dem) IM: Men prøv at se, hvad I observerer og skriv det ned.

795 Ch: Kan det passe at strømstyrken ikke gør nogen forskel? IM: Hvad har I observeret? Har I sat at der ikke er forskel p˚a1 og 10 A. Ch: Det er det, vi har m˚alt.Der er ikke forskel ml. 5 og 10 A. Rs: Alts˚ahar du noteret det? (skeptisk). IM: Prøv at skrue endnu længere ned.

800 Fu: De kan komme ned p˚ato. IM: S˚ase om der sker noget. Ch. Det h˚aber jeg fandme. Det ville jo være for mærkeligt hvis der skete noget, n˚arder slet ikke var tilsluttet strøm. Bare vi holder ledningen hen... Fu: Jeg har den p˚a2.7, skal vi prøve?

104 805 (utydelig snak om fodbold) Fu: Ok, hvis jeg skruer s˚alangt ned, s˚askal jeg have den ned i 2,5 cm. Rs: For at den ændrer n˚alen? Fu: Ja. Men det er alts˚aikke lineært.

Episode 11, ca. 11 minutes.

810 The beginning of lesson 6, Discussion of the EM-experiment. The whole class.

IM: Hvad var det I lavede sidst? Ch: Vi lagde et kompas p˚abordet, s˚ahavde vi en ledning, som vi satte i strømkassen, den ene ende i plus, den anden i minus, s˚adet blev et kredsløb.

815 Og s˚atændte vi. Og s˚aplacerede vi ledningen over kompasn˚alen. Og afhængigt af hvordan vi placerede den, s˚abevægede kompasn˚alensig an- derledes. Og det beviser jo at strøm m˚ahave noget p˚avirkningp˚amag- netisme. IM: Og hvad observerede I s˚a?

820 Fu: At der var et magnetfelt ved ledningen som p˚avirkede kompasset. Og det afhang af hvor langt væk den var. Og det var ikke lineært (viser et note- papir med ca. 4 datapunkter i et koordinatsystem med afstand p˚ax-aksen og udsving p˚ay-aksen). IM: I har 4 datapunkter? Er der nogen kommentarer til det?

825 Ch: Det er m˚aske lidt for lidt for lidt. IM: Ja, det tænker jeg ogs˚a.Det kan vi vende tilbage til. Andre observa- tioner? Sn: Det virkede stadigvæk hvis der var en bog imellem. Hvis der ikke var mere end 5 cm materiale, s˚ahavde det ingen indvirkning.

830 Ch: Vi s˚aogs˚aat der var noget der gentog sig ift. placering af ledningen. S˚a n˚alenvendte sig altid s˚adanat den positive side af n˚alen,alts˚aden røde som plejer at pege mod nord, den svang altid 90 grader til højre for plussiden af ledningen. (Jeg tegner p˚atavlen og Ch. Kommer og viser hvilken vej n˚alensvingede)

835 Ch: Man lagde ledningen parallelt med n˚alen.Den drejede sig for os altid 90 grader væk fra... Alts˚anord-enden pegede 90 mod øst. IM: Ja, det lyder rigtigt. Er det ogs˚adet den anden gruppe observerede? Ma: Ja, vi s˚aogs˚aat strømstyrken p˚avirkede hvor hurtigt n˚alenbevægede sig. Hvis strømstyrken var lav, bevægede den sig langsommere. Den bevægede

840 sig heller ikke liges˚ameget. Ikke 90 grader. IM: S˚aI ellers 90 grader? Hvordan ift. højden? Ch: Omkring 5 cm var der hvor n˚alenkun lige dirrede lidt.

105 IM: Hvilke materialer prøvede i at stikke ind ml. ledningen og n˚alen? Ma: Det gjorde ikke nogen forskel.

845 Ch: Vi prøvede med en bog og et stykke papir, hvor der ikke skete en skid. Sp: Vandflasken gjorde lidt en forskel, men det var nok pga. at afstanden blev for stor. IM: (noterer p˚atavlen) S˚ahvis man ikke ændrer afstanden, s˚agør afskærmn- ing ingen forskel iflg. jeres observationer. Alle de her ting har I jo selv valgt

850 at undersøge. Hvad skete der hvis man vendte ledningen om? Sn: S˚asvingede den mod vest (Jeg tegner p˚atavlen) Ag: Skal det ikke være den samme pol der gør det samme. . . N˚ah,alts˚a,n˚ar man vendte ledningen! Og s˚ase hvilken vej den svingede. Det s˚avi ogs˚a!

855 Det havde jeg glemt. Ch: Det er derfor at man kan sige at den altid svinger 90 grader til højre for plus. Alts˚astrømmens retning. (længere stilhed) IM: I har ogs˚aalle f˚aetet papir med hjem. Hvad handler det om? (Ørsted’s

860 første udgivelse af sine observationer). Ag: Det handler jo om det samme som vi har snakket om. Observationer ifbm. forsøget. Der matcher ogs˚amange af de samme ting som vi ogs˚afandt frem til. IM: Hvad er det for nogle ting?

865 Ag: (Læser op) Anlagdes den negative ved den nordlige ende og den positive ved den sydlige, s˚agik nordenden mod vesten og sydenden mod østen. Det tænkte vi at det passer med vores observationer, hvor vi har skrevet venstre og højre. Og s˚anoget med at en træplade svækker ikke virkning. Selvom vi ikke har prøvet med en træplade, s˚ahar vi prøvet med papir og s˚adannoget

870 og vi s˚adet samme, selvom det ikke var samme materiale. IM: Ja, netop. Hvad ellers? Ch: Han fik jo udsvinget til 40, 50 eller tres grader og nogle gange mere, men vi fik altid bare s˚adan80-100 grader. IM: Men det afhang af strømstyrken?

875 Ag: Ja, Ø’s apparater har vel været svagere end vores? IM: Ja, det tror jeg ogs˚a. Rs: Ja, han har vel brugt en voltasøjle?

Episode 12, ca. 8 minutes. The beginning of lesson 6, Discussion of the connections between

880 Ørsted’s work. The whole class.

106 IM: Ser I nogle linjer fra de andre eksperimenter Ø har lavet til dette? En linje i hans arbejde? Ag: Det der med at f˚ating til at hænge sammen. At han bevidst g˚arefter

885 at finde f.eks. to tings sammenhæng. Alts˚adet ydre og det indre og hvordan to kræfter kan danne ´enkraft. Og hvordan verden er bygget op af s˚adanlidt af modsætninger, der skaber helheden tilsammen. Det synes jeg at han er g˚aetslavisk efter at finde? IM: Ja, hvilken sammenhæng ledte han f.eks. efter i Chladnifigurerne?

890 Ag. Nu, kan jeg ikke lige huske... IM: Det er klangfigurerne Ag: Det tænker jeg var s˚adanlyd og syn. . . Og ogs˚anoget andet? Sp: Elektricitet? IM: Ja, netop. Det er noget med at fører naturfænomener sammen.

895 Rs: Alts˚anu har vi jo set tre ting: Chladni og Lichtenberg og s˚adet her nu. Det er som om at han godt vil have noget elektricitet inkorporeret overalt i naturen. IM: Ja? Rs: Alts˚aogs˚ai Lichtenbergfigurerne med det indre og det ydre og s˚adan

900 noget og hvordan det ligner naturen. Og s˚amed klangfigurerne. . . det kan godt være at det er skjult bag noget lyd, men s˚akommer det igen, han mener at der er noget elektricitet ind over. IM: Helt rigtigt. Og de Lichtenberg-figurer bruger han jo til at se alle former i naturen. Han kalder dem for ”grundformer for naturen”. Og det hænger

905 sammen med det Ma sagde om, at nogle kræfter er mere grundlæggende end andre. Og det er ikke tilfældigt at elektricitet ses overalt, for elektricitet er et udtryk for de 2 grundkræfter som ligger under alle fænomener. Og noget af det her har han jo ret i. Elektromagnetismen er jo en af de fire grundkræfter. Det er ikke et stof, som mange andre troede. Kan I huske hvor Ø havde sin

910 id´eom enhed fra? Ma: Kant? IM: Jo, blandt andet. Hvem ellers? Ch: Hans tyske ven øh. . . Ritter? IM. Ja, netop. Og han tilhørte jo en særlig filosofisk skole?

915 Ch: Noget natur-et-eller-andet... Fu: Oehlenschl¨ager? IM: Ja, det er ogs˚arigtigt. Og Oehlenschl¨agertilhører netop samme filosofiske skole? Det er nemmere end I tror. Ch: Naturfilosofi!

920 IM: Ja og hvis vi leder efter en litterær betegnelse? Ej, jeg ved godt det er strengt at spørge om det i fysik, haha. Th: Guldalderen?

107 Ch: Naturromantik. IM: Ja, netop, romantikken! Som fyldte meget i Guldalderen, det er ogs˚a

925 rigtigt. Det romantiske paradigme, kunne man kalde det. Ved I hvad et paradigme er? (Spredt mumlen) Fu: Er det ikke en periode, kan man sige det? IM: Nej, Guldalderen vil man kalde en tidsperiode. Det er en overskrift p˚a

930 en tid. Men det hænger sammen med det. Fu: En bevægelse i en tidsperiode? IM: Ja, det kan det være. Ch: Nu har jeg googlet det. Det er en tankem˚adeeller et system af tanker og sammenhænge.

935 IM: Ja, en m˚adeat tænke p˚aeller et system for ens tanker. Og hvis man tænker p˚aen bestemt m˚ade,hvis man befinder sig indenfor et paradigme, s˚a.. . de ting man tænker er p˚avirket af det dominerende paradigme. Og ofte s˚aved man det ikke engang selv (noterer p˚atavlen). Og det betyder ikke at man ikke kan tænke noget rigtigt, man kan tænke masser af rigtige

940 ting, men alle ting man tænker vil være p˚avirket af det system man tænker ind i. Og i det romantiske paradigme, der skal være sammenhæng, harmoni, enhed, symmetri, skønhed, kræfter der er større end mennesket. Det er det paradigme Ø skriver i. Ch: Der er ogs˚adet paradigme at dengang var man meget religiøs. Men

945 der var en slags platonistisk paradigme med at der skal være to ting: F.eks. id´eernesog fænomenernes verden. Og i Ø’s tilfælde har det s˚aværet. . . P˚a det tidspunkt har de fleste religiøse tænkt at den her dualistiske verden. . . At sjælen er perfekt og kroppen er dens fængsel. Og Ø har jo tænkt s˚adan noget med at naturen var det perfekte. Og jeg kan faktisk ikke huske hvad

950 hans modsætning til naturen var? IM: Nej, det tror jeg er meget relevant, at du ikke kan huske det. Grunden til at du ikke kan huske hvad der for Ø er det d˚arlige,er nok at Ø ikke var dualist p˚aden m˚adesom du beskriver. Dualisme er at sige det jordiske er noget skidt og Gud, det evige, er noget godt. Alts˚amaterien er d˚arlig,˚anden

955 er god. For Ø og de andre romantikere er der ikke s˚adanen skillelinje. For ˚andener i materien, for ˚andener i naturen. N˚ardu kigger p˚anaturen, s˚aser du Guds ˚and.N˚ardu bruger matematikken, er du i Guds ˚and.For Ø kan du tilg˚aGud gennem materien. Ch: N˚ah.Men alligevel synes jeg bare. . . Jeg troede han havde en meget

960 dualistisk forst˚aelse,men det kan jeg godt se, at det havde romantikerne s˚a ikke. IM: Nej, men dualisme kan ogs˚abetyde mange forskellige ting. Ch: Ja, for han har en ualmindeligt firkantet tilgang til naturvidenskab,

108 hvor alt hvad han nogensinde finder bliver nødt til at have et modsvar. Alle

965 kræfter skal have en modkraft. IM. Ja, s˚aindenfor den fysiske verden er der to kræfter og det kan ogs˚akaldes en form for dualisme. Rs: Ø er vel ogs˚amed til at igangsætte et paradigmeskifte indenfor naturv- idenskaben med hans forsøg?

970 IM: Ja, det kunne man sagtens sige.

Episode 13, ca. 10 minutes. The end of lesson 6, RC-question. The whole class.

IM: (fra Reflection Corner) Hvis I nu skulle sætte nogle ord p˚aden naturv-

975 idenskabelige proces. Hvordan er den? Hvis I kan overføre noget fra Ø til naturvidenskab generelt? Sn: Man opstiller en hypotese og s˚akan man teste den. IM: (skriver p˚atavle) Teste hypoteser. Ma: Ens udgangspunkt, ligesom det hermed at Ø ville gerne have at der var

980 s˚adanto kræfter. S˚aprøvede han med nogle forskellige forsøg. Chladni og Lichtenberg figurer osv. S˚am˚aske at hvis man har en id´e,s˚aer det s˚adan lidt trial-and-error med nogle forskellige opstillinger. IM: Ja, det kunne man sagtens sige. Man prøver at vise sin igennem forskel- lige fænomener og n˚ardet ikke virker, s˚aprøver man igen, Er det det du

985 mener? Ma: Ja. Rs: Jeg tænker meget at hans tidlige arbejde er meget. . . han har stillet spørgsm˚alved det der. . . ved normen. Eller ved det der ligesom er fastlagt som værende det rigtige. Hvor det er m˚aske sværere i dag, men jeg tror at

990 det kan være godt at der ind imellem kommer en og stiller spørgsm˚alstegn ved det etablerede. Og s˚akan det godt være at det er forkert, men bare s˚a det etablerede, bliver sat p˚aprøve. IM: Ja, helt sikkert. Ch: Det der med at han. . . Dengang har der været en masse hverdagsting

995 hvor man tænkte: Hvordan fungerer det? Og ingen havde et svar p˚adet. Og det er jo lidt der at naturvidenskaben starter, at hypoteserne starter. Fordi for at teste hypotesen, skal man jo først have set noget i naturen, hvor man tænker. Hvad sker der her? Rs: Jeg tænker ogs˚aat før i tiden har det jo været lettere for alle at g˚aind

1000 i naturvidenskaben. Det har været mere tilgængeligt fordi det har været p˚a et mere basalt niveau end det er nu. Det har nok ogs˚abundet i at man ikke

109 har kunnet finde ud af s˚ahurtigt om der er andre der har lavet det først. For i dag kan man jo bare google om der er nogen der har undersøgt det. Hvor dengang var det ikke s˚alet at finde informationerne, s˚aligesom Ritter,

1005 s˚aopdagede man noget som var opdaget. Hvor i dag, s˚ahvis nogen allerede arbejder med et emne, s˚aholder man sige tilbage. IM: Ja, det kan man godt forestille sig. Ift. hvis man gerne selv vil gøre en stor opdagelse. . . Hvad skal der til, tror I? Ma: At man bygger videre p˚anoget nogle andre har lavet. Ligesom Voltasøjlen.

1010 Fu: Man skal have en forudsætning fra den tid man er i. B˚adeteknisk men ogs˚aift. id´eer. Rs: Man skal have en god portion stædighed. Man skal ikke give op for hurtigt. Man kan godt forestille sig at mange vil give op, hvis de ikke kommer videre med et forsøg, eller hvis de som Ø st˚artil en konference i Paris og s˚a

1015 ligesom bliver til grin ikke? Man skal lade være med at g˚aind med en id´e om at alt hvad man laver bliver rigtigt og lykkes. Fu: Held spiller ogs˚aen rolle. Man havde opdaget de magnetiske poler, men s˚avar der ogs˚ade elektriske. Og Ø sagde jo til den konference at han havde set dem. M˚aske har han bare været uheldig, eller han var heldig da han

1020 lavede det hjemme. Ch: Held spiller ogs˚aen rolle ift. at f˚apubliceret det man har lavet først.

110 Appendix G

Answers to Writing Exercises

This appendix contains the students’ answers to the writing exercises before and after the sequence:

Before the sequence: Th 1 1. Jeg ville umiddelbart tro at ny viden i fysik opst˚arud fra den naturvi- denskabelige metode. Man opstiller en hypotese, tester den med et forsøg og derfra se om den kan bekræftes. 2. Det giver m˚aske nogle andre perspektiver. En anden m˚adeat opfatte naturvidenskab p˚a.I forhold til et mere historisk syn har der gennem tiden ogs˚aværet forskellige fortolkninger og meninger om naturvidenskab. Og nogle fysikere har haft svært ved at n˚atil enighed. Som der ligger i ordet naturvidenskab, giver det et verdensbilledet forklaret med naturvidenska- belige briller, og ikke med mytiske briller i form af religion f.eks.. 3. Kan vi med 100% sikre os at de opdagelser vi gør os er 100% korrekte? Kan vi ved hjælp af filosofien højne troværdigheden ved de opdagelser vi gør os? Kan filosofien overhovedet hjælpe os med forst˚aelsenaf det, eller er det bare subjektiver meninger der kommer til udtryk?

Sn 1 1. Jeg ville tro ny viden i fysik kom igennem længere varige undersøgelser. Jeg tænker de gamle fysikere havde en teori om et eller andet ogs˚aopstillede de en hypotese. Denne hypotese ville de derefter undersøger om var rigtigt ved hjælp af forsøg. Efter det fremlagde de deres teori til andre fysikere, som

111 har kigget teorien igennem. Det m˚aha været en meget lang proces, hvor stort set intet var overladt til tilfældighederne. 2. Ser man p˚arenæssancen var, der en begyndende tendens, hvor flere vi- denskabsmænd blev anerkendt. I sær Charles Darwin blev kendt for hans teori, der modbeviste skabelsesteorien. Denne teori blev taget i mod med blandede meninger. Charles Darwin er bare et lille eksempel p˚aen stor ten- dens indenfor ny videnskab, der fandt sted under renæssancen. I nutiden kan man se p˚aden p˚avirkning global opvarmning har gjort p˚amenneskeheden. Efter annonceringen om, at kloden langsomt blev opvarmet er alle begyndt at passe bedre p˚akloden 3. Hvordan man finder p˚asin hypotese... Ved det ikke rigtig.

Sp 1 1. Ny viden i fysik opst˚arved at en videnskabsmand har en teori omkring noget og derefter undersøger det. Det kan for eksempel være et tankeeksper- iment som bliver efterprøvet. Videnskabsmænd er ofte s˚akloge at deres teorier giver nogenlunde mening i forhold til hvis et barn fx skulle komme med en teori. Ny viden kan ogs˚aopst˚aved en tilfældighed. Hvis der bliver foretaget et forsøg, hvor resultaterne enten er helt anderledes end forventet, eller at der opst˚arnye resultater omkring et andet emne end lige netop det forsøget skulle undersøge. Der skal oftest foretages rigtig mange forsøg for at viden bliver accepteret. Naturvidenskabelig viden er dog aldrig 100 % sikker. Det er blot den viden vi holder os til indtil noget andet er bevist. Fx at atomet er den mindste del der findes. Dette blev senere modbevist, men indtil da var det korrekt. 2. For lang tid siden blev alting forklaret med religion og overtroiske myter. Da naturvidenskaben fik sit gennembrud betød det, at samfundet blev in- drettet p˚aen helt anden m˚ade.Det har resulteret i at de naturvidenskabelige opfattelse er den mest ’korrekte’ og der er flere og flere der bliver ateister fordi der ikke længere er brug for religion til at forklare forskellige fænomener. Derudover kan opdagelser som for eksempel den globale opvarmning ogs˚a p˚avirke vores samfund utrolig meget. Fordi at naturvidenskaben er ac- cepteret i en s˚ahøj grad vil vi stole p˚ating som videnskabsmændene siger. Med global opvarmning har der fulgt mange møder med topledere og mange nye tiltag i de forskellige lande for at mindske denne globale opvarmning især gennem minde CO2-udslip. Men ogs˚ahos den enkelte præger det ens hverdag at man ved at jorden er skadet og fortsat bliver beskadiget af os mennesker.

112 3.Jeg tænker at der m˚avære nogen gange, n˚arder bliver opdaget noget helt nyt at der ikke nødvendigvis er en metode til at tjekke teorien. Hvordan finder videnskabsmanden ud af, hvordan han skal tjekke sin teori?

Rs 1 1. Den opst˚arved undringer over hvordan noget hænger sammen eller hvor- dan noget fungerer. 2. Enten kan jeg ikke komme p˚anogle tendenser, ellers ogs˚aer det fordi jeg ikke helt forst˚arspørgsm˚alet. 3. Det er ikke s˚ameget hvordan opdagelsen gøres, mere hvordan man arbe- jder med opdagelsen. Efter man har konstateret at en kraft findes hvordan bestemmer man hvilke tal, der beskriver den kraft, hvordan kan man gøre noget, der virker s˚aabstrakt s˚akonkret.

Ma 1 1. Via eksperimenter, teori og uheld. Enten skal et forsøg kunne bakke op om noget teori, ellers skal et forsøg kunne føre til teori indenfor et givent emne. Eksperimenter er med til at enten bekræfte eller afkræfte teori, hvorefter man enten kan justere sin teori eller godkende den (naturvidenskabelig metode?)

2. Ud fra princippet om, at fysikken skal bruges til at forklare verdenen, spiller menneskets forforst˚aelseen stor rolle, især indenfor for eksempel reli- gion. Man vil gerne opn˚aresultater der stemmer overens med de antagelser man havde til at starte med, og menneskets antagelser kan ogs˚asætte en stoppe for forskning indenfor bestemte omr˚ader.Vi vil gerne have at fysikken bekræfter vores teorier, men vi vil ikke have at den afkræfter vores teorier. Tendenser som ses under for eksempel oplysningstiden gjorde, at naturviden- skaben blomstrede, mens andre tendenser som for eksempel kirken tilrette- lagde, forhindrede naturvidenskaben i at udvides, at den ikke stemte overens med bibelen. Frygt kan ogs˚aspille en rolle, for eksempel benægtes og undermineres truslen om klimaforandringer, grundet frygten for dens konsekvenser og de store ændringer der skal igangsættes, hvis klimaforandringerne skal mindskes. 3. Hvordan kan vi sikre os, at vores antagelser indenfor fysikken er korrekte? Det er jo altid ”bare” en teori, og vi ser gennem hele historien, at universelt

113 godkendte teorier afkræftes, s˚ahvordan kan vi vide, at det er vores teorier der er korrekte?

Fu 1 1. Ny viden i fysik er svær at opn˚a. Datiden store fysikere har allerede opdaget det meste, men den slags viden man kan finde p˚any, er udvidelsen af de daværende fysikeres opdagelse. Kvantemekanikken f.eks. Et super abstrakt emne hvor diskussionen er bevaret siden Einstein og Bohr. Og man diskuterer det stadig. Men, at finde ny viden inden for fysik er svært at finde. Det er meget mere teknologisk nu til dags, og der er ikke meget at finde, da de primitive metoder i sin tid rent faktisk fungerede meget godt. Dermed er største delen af viden opdaget. Dog tror jeg at vi mennesker vil finde noget nyt hvis vi fokusserer p˚adet ydre rum. Her tror jeg der er meget ny viden at komme efter, da vi først i det 20.ende og 21. Arhundrede,˚ er begyndt at udforske det for real. 2. Jeg ved ikke rigtigt hvordan det hænger sammen med kultur og samfund. Men mange af de ting man har opdaget i fysikken, er med til at holde sam- fundet i gang. De mekaniske love, sørger for sikre biler og busser, el-emnet, sørger for strøm og atomkraftværk giver energi som er langt over de fossile brændstofsmiddeler. Fysikken i sig selv er ogs˚aen kultur. Man befinder sig i et kulturelt felt af bestemte mennesker n˚ar man omg˚asmed videnskab og især fysik, da det er viden om alt. 3. Superpossitionen er et super abstrakt emne, og jeg glæder mig s˚ameget til at nogen kan komme med et klart svar. For alle de spørgsm˚alsom st˚ar ubesvaret for os her p˚askolen, er der specialister som har svar p˚a.Folk som har fordybet sig helt ekstremt i det specifikke emne. Men kvantemekanikken er et niveau hvor der stadig er uenigheder, som dengang hvor man opdaget at jordet var rund. Men det er fuldtændig rigtgt. Hvordan i alverden er nogen kommet p˚aat opdage tyngdekraften. Nogen siger han (red. Newton) fik et æble i hoved en varm sommerdag. Men hvordan n˚arman der til at man nærmst kan opfinde videnskab? N˚arman laver formler som passer helt perfekt p˚adet praktiske. Et meget filosofisk spørgsm˚al.Men hvad er videnskab og hvordan n˚arman dertil?

114 Ag 1 1. Jeg forestiller mig at ny viden i fysik opst˚arn˚arman støder p˚aet fænomen der ikke kan forklares, alts˚aat man opdager at visse ting opfører sig p˚aen bestemt m˚adeenten i nogle tilfælde eller hele tiden, men at man ikke har nogen regeler eller love om hvorfor og helt præcis hvordan tingene opfører sig p˚aen s˚adan m˚ade.P˚aden m˚adekunne man lave nogle forsøg omkring hvor ofte nogle ting opfører sig som de gør, f.eks. i hvilken retning de bevæger sig eller andet. Generelt tror jeg meget det handler om at finde noget der ikke er en forklaring p˚a,og s˚aforsøge at finde forklaringen. Det handler nok ogs˚a meget om nysgerrighed generelt, men ogs˚arigtig ofte tilfældigheder. 2. Fysik og historie hænger meget sammen, fordi fænomener indenfor fysik ofte hænger meget sammen med samfundstendenser. Der kan b˚adeopst˚a spørgsm˚ali forbindelse med nogle ting i samfundet, som man ikke forst˚ar, men man s˚akan forklare med fysik, eller man kan have en ny forklaring p˚a noget indenfor fysik, som s˚ahar en stor indvirkning p˚asamfundet, f.eks. atomkraft. Jeg tror ogs˚ader er rigtig mange gi fysik der først kan opdages n˚ar samfundet er udviklet nok til at nogen er klar til at finde en forklaring, og at eks. teknologien er langt nok til overhovedet at udføre et forsøg der kan give svar p˚anogle ting. Det kan ogs˚ahandle meget om indstillingen og de m˚aderman forklarer verden p˚ai denne periode, f.eks. renæssancen, hvor man ikke længere fandt svar p˚aalt omkring verden i gud, dette gav mulighed for at give nye forklaringer, som ikke før havde været mulige at undersøge, og m˚aske overhovedet stille spørgsm˚alstegnved. 3. Jeg forst˚arikke hvordan fysikere afgør hvilke forsøg og indenfor hvilket omr˚adedet er relevant at undersøge, n˚arde skal finde svar p˚aet nyopdaget fænomen. Jeg forst˚arikke hvordan de definerer hvilken kategori det hører under, hvad det kan give forklaring p˚a,og hvordan man skal undersøge det.

Ch 1 1. Et menneske, eller en gruppe af mennesker, typisk med en naturligt nys- gerrig disposition, og ressourcer i form af økonomisk og tidsmæssigt over- skud, kaster sig ud i en helt masse tilfældige forsøg, hvoraf størstedelen af variablerne bliver ændret p˚abasis af en mavefornemmelse, og en brøkdel af udgangspunktet for ens første forsøg er baseret p˚aen generel id´eom hvilken retning man gerne vil hen imod. Det kan sammenlignes lidt med at bage en kage. Putter man mere æg i, bliver kagen mere KLÆG. Mere mel, bliver den mere TØR. Man kan hurtigt

115 regne ud hvilke effekter ens variabler har p˚aslut resultatet, s˚alænge at man kun ændrer p˚a´envariabel ad gangen. Hvert forsøg produceret et resultat, og man vil hurtigt kunne vurdere hvilke effekter de variabler man har at gøre med, har p˚aresultatet af forsøget. Herfra handler det bare om at man har et m˚alman arbejder hen imod – aka. Man gør brug af den deduktive metode (mere om det længere nede) – og ændrer p˚asine variabler indtil man ender med det resultat man oprindeligt havde i sigte. P˚agrund af dette, m˚adet resultat man higer hen imod allerede eksistere eller fremg˚ai naturen. For eksempel. Hvis man har en id´eom at der kan opst˚aen elektrisk strøm mellem to objekter, kan man opstille et forsøg der producerer netop det – men det kræver at man i første omgang har oplevet i naturen at man pludselig har mærket en underlig energi da man rørte ved et stykke metal, p˚aen tør vinterdag i Marts. (Disse vinterdage forekommer kun i Danmark) 2. Jeg kan komme i tanke om en h˚andfuld sammenhænge. Lidt ligesom med modetøj, m˚ader være en eller anden tendens til at ´enfysikers opdagelser kan starte et trend, der gør en række fysikere opmærksomme p˚avigtigheden, finurligheden og innovationen ved det ny-opdagede. Derfor kan ´enopdagelse skabe en kultur hvor man dykker mere ned i den opdagelse. Se for eksempel Einsteins relativitets teori, eller Newtons opdagelse af tyngdekraften – eller Tesla og Edisons stridigheder. Desuden er der ogs˚aeksempler p˚aat samfundets efterspørgsel producerer ny fysisk viden. Jeg tænker her for eksempel p˚aopdagelsen af flyet. Mennesket n˚aedep˚aet eller andet tidspunkt s˚alangt i deres teknologiske know-how, at ideen om at producere en maskine der kunne lette fra jorden, ikke længere fremstod som total sci-f, men rent faktisk som en plausibel opfindelse – og dermed var der ogs˚aet stigende antal fysikere, videnskabsmænd og ingeniører der begyndte at arbejde p˚aat skabe en s˚adanopfindelse. Man kan ogs˚a argumentere for at krig og konkurrence – for eksempel i den kolde krig og anden verdenskrig – medfører stor videnskabelig udvikling, fordi det kan medføre store fordele p˚akrigsfronten. Se f.eks. space-race til m˚anen,missiler og atomv˚aben. 3. I forlængelse af det jeg skrev til spørgsm˚al1 - hvordan opdager man noget, som man ikke p˚aforh˚andkan se forekomme i naturen? Og er der noget, som ikke forekommer i naturen? Hvad med f.eks. kvantemekanik?

116 After the sequence Th 2 1. Som vi ogs˚adiskuterede i dag i refleksionshjørnet er der mange m˚aderder spiller ind n˚arman skal opn˚any viden i fysik. Det handler helt grundlæggende om at teste nogen hypoteser. Her er en trial and error (and repeat) metode oplagt. Samtidig er det grundlæggende at besidde en vis undren om hvordan fysik fungerer. Man kan enten finde p˚anoget helt nyt eller man kan bygge videre p˚aandres arbejde for at opn˚any viden i fysik. Vi s˚ahvordan der i Ørsteds tid ens kontakter og netværk spillede ens rolle p˚asin opn˚aelseaf viden inden for fysik. 2. Samtidens tendenser i kultur og samfund vil altid p˚avirke naturvidensk- aben i en hvis grad. Videnskabsfolk vil altid i en hvis grad været farvet i deres syn i at opn˚aviden p˚a.Vi s˚ahvordan Ørsted langt hen ad vejen fra b˚aretaf naturromantikken, som er et godt eksempel p˚ahvordan et paradigme spillede ind p˚ahans opfattelse. Ørsted var alts˚ab˚aretaf et særligt filosofisk syn p˚ahans m˚adeat indsamle viden p˚a.Vi s˚aogs˚ahvordan Ørsted i en hvis grad gik mod den daværende gængse opfattelse af hvordan sammenhængen mellem magnetisme og elektronik var. Da han udgav artikler om det i sin tid blev det anset som værende provokerende. 3. Jeg ved ikke hvor konkret jeg kan være her. Men noget der stadig er interessant som man prøver kræfter med er om det er muligt at inkorporere tyngekraften i standardmodellen. Ligesom Ørsted forenede kræfter med hi- nanden er det alts˚anogle tanker der er g˚aetvidere i fysikken. Man kan altid anskue naturvidenskabelige opdagelser filosofisk. Skal sikker viden udledes rationelt eller empirisk? Det er spørgsm˚alder rejser n˚arman vælger at tage de filosofiske briller p˚a.

Sn 2 1. - H˚ardtarbejde - Utallige test af opstillede hypoteser - Besidde et stort netværk af kloge hoveder, der kan hjælpe med at være skeptiske over nye opdagelser - Nogle gange kan lidt held spille en rolle. Man opdager m˚aske noget andet end egentlig forventet eller undersøgt - Bygge videre p˚aandres opdagelser 2. - Særligt i gamle dage var der sammenhæng mellem samfund, kultur og ny videnskab - Det ændrer jo hele tiden p˚asamfundet, n˚ar der opfindes nye ting. F.eks. Ørsteds opdagelse af elektromagnetisme har været en del af

117 starten til vores liv med elektronik alle vegne 3. - Hmmmmm - Jeg undrer mig primært over, hvordan videnskabsmændene i første omgang fik ideen til en hypotese, som der slet ikke fandtes noget information de kunne blive inspireret af

Sp 2 1. En fysiker har en id´eomkring noget som m˚aske har en sammenhæng eller er p˚aen bestemt m˚ade.Derefter er det vigtigt at han/hun efterprøver denne hypotese/teori en masse gange, s˚adans˚aman ikke ender som Ørsted og ikke kan vise forsøget n˚arman skal vise det til offentligheden. Derudover har det en stor p˚avirkning,hvilke ting der lige er blevet opdaget, for ofte bygger fysikere videre p˚aet emne som er ”oppe i tiden”. Ofte er det fordi at det s˚a er moderne, men det kan ogs˚avære en stor fordel da der s˚abliver opdaget ting som man muligvis kan bruge til sine opdagelser inden for det emne. 2. Ofte kan man se p˚aen naturvidenskabsmands tankegang, hvilken tid han har levet i, da hans m˚adeat tænke p˚abliver p˚avirket af tendenserne i kultur og samfund. Derudover kan der ogs˚avære nogle ting som er mere interessante at undersøg i forhold til tendenser i kultur og samfund. Man kunne ogs˚ase hos Ørsted at han forbandt kunst og fysik p˚aen meget fin m˚ade.Blandt andet der med vandspringet, hvor han forklarer vandspringet fysisk, men vandspringet ogs˚abare kan være en smuk ting man kan kigge p˚a. Kunsten ændrer sig ogs˚ai takt med kultur og samfund og hvis man s˚asammenkæder fysik og kunst som Ørsted gjorde det giver det rigtig god mening af fysik gør det samme. 3. Jeg synes stadig at det er ret vildt, hvordan man f˚aren tanke i sit hoved som man vælger at undersøge. Men efter dette forløb giver det meget bedre mening for mig end det har gjort før. I sær i forhold til at det kan være p˚avirkningfra andre opdagelser der f˚aren til at tænke p˚aen ny løsning i forhold til noget. Derudover skal der jo ogs˚avære en del forsøg der ikke passer, før man finder frem til noget banebrydende. Eller s˚adaner det i hvert fald som oftest.

Rs 2 1. Man kan sætte spørgsm˚alstegnved den viden der er i ens samtid, og ud fra det kan man finde nye sammenhængen mellem forskellige elementer i verdenen. Jeg tror ikke at der fremadrettet kommer s˚ameget ny viden,

118 forst˚aetsom at den viden der kommer den næste ˚arrække kommer til at være baseret p˚anuværende viden. Det skyldes nok at det bliver svære at opdage nye fænomener eller lignende, da de fleste lettere ting allerede er blevet opdaget p˚anuværende tidspunkt. 2. Naturvidenskaben kan være med til hvordan forskellige samfund eller kul- turer opfatter verdenen, ud fra forskellige overbevisninger af hvordan verden er opbygget. Det betyder ikke at det er relevant for alle da der er mange mennesker, hvis liv ikke tager et afsæt i de normer der er blevet fastsat af naturvidenskaben. 3. P˚anuværende tidspunkt, alts˚aherrens ˚ar2018, er jeg ikke helt sikker p˚a hvordan man ”finder” nye forsknings omr˚ader.Jeg gad gerne vide hvordan de finder inspiration til at tage fat p˚anye omr˚aderder ikke er blevet forsket i.

Ma 2 1. Ny viden i fysik opn˚asgennem en proces af ”trial and error (and repeat)”, hvori forskellige elementer testes, dog vil jeg tro at man kun skal p˚avirke en variabel af gangen. Derudover kan ny viden ogs˚aopst˚aved at man bygger videre p˚aandres arbejde, hvis andre har lagt en grundlag for en gren af fysikken der kan udforskes. Ny viden kan ogs˚aopn˚asved at have et kritisk syn p˚adet etablerede, eller normen, indenfor fysikken, og udfordre fænomener der antages for at være sande. Eksperimenter og variation i eksperimenter er vigtigt, og det er nødvendigt at udforske flere forskellige muligheder og være grundig i sit arbejde. 2.Fysikken p˚avirkes af den periode verden befinder sig i. De filosofiske og m˚aske religiøse tanker der florerer p˚adet tidspunkt vil komme til udtryk i hvad man leder efter i fysikken, og dermed har man allerede lagt en grundlag for, hvad man ønsker der skal findes. Tendenser i romantikken gjorde, at man ledte efter ˚andeni naturen og altings harmoni og sammenhæng, som var grundlaget for Ørsteds determination p˚aat finde disse to s˚akaldte grund- kræfter. Stædighed kan ogs˚astagnerer nye naturvidenskabelige opdagelse, fx da det kan betyde paradigmeskift og dermed skal man kassere hvad man ellers troede var sandt, fx ved Københavnerfortolkningen. Vi vil gerne, at fysikken bekræfter vores antagelser og verden, og denne subjektivitet kan ogs˚ap˚avirke hvad man leder efter og resultaterne. 3. Hvordan kan man være sikker p˚a,at de antagelse man har indenfor

119 fysikken, er sande?

Fu 2 1. Ny viden inden for fysik opst˚ar,n˚arman har en tanke eller en forudsætning for noget. Har man en forudsætning/tanke om at noget best˚araf to kræfter vil man begynde at undersøge dette. Og man vil m˚aske ende i at kunne finde ud af det man siger er rigtigt eller forkert. Ny viden er svært at definere, for hvem startede med at ”opfinde” fysik? Alt er vel byggesten p˚aden platform, som blev grundlagt for mange mange ˚arsiden. 2. Naturvidenskab og især fysik er en ting som spiller meget sammen med samfund og kultur. Der er fysik i alt vi fortager os i dag. Sætter du dig p˚aen stol vil du p˚avirke stolens masse da du har tilføjet din egen til den. G˚ardu en tur, kan man snakke om normalkraften, tyngekraften og gnidningskrafte. Alt dette p˚avirker vores dagligdag, og noget som vi bare tager forgivet. Man burde værdsætte naturvidenskaben meget mere end man gør i forvejen, for vi er omringet af den. 3. Jeg personligt vil enormt gerne vide hvordan i alverden Einstein er kommer frem til relativitetsteorien, og hvordan Niels Bohr kom frem til københavner fortolkningen. De lidt mere abstrakte og som ligger langt over den men- neskelige naturs evner til at tænke. Et stort ubesvaret svar som st˚armig klart er hvordan elektroner og partikler kan befinde sig i alle stadier p˚aalle tidspnkter, indtil man observere dette. Et andet filosofisk spørgsm˚alsom ogs˚abefinder sig i min hjerne, er det med at man p˚avirker resultatet i fysik, n˚arman observerer det. Noget som Niels Bohr lagde vægt p˚a.Nemlig at elektronen befinder sig et bestemt sted, fordi vi har m˚altden til at befinde sig i det bestemte sted.

Ag 2 1. Jeg forestiller mig at ny viden i fysik opst˚arn˚arman støder p˚aet fænomen der ikke kan forklares, alts˚aat man opdager at visse ting opfører sig p˚aen bestemt m˚adeenten i nogle tilfælde eller hele tiden, men at man ikke har nogen regeler eller love om hvorfor og helt præcis hvordan tingene opfører sig p˚aen s˚adan m˚ade.P˚aden m˚adekunne man lave nogle forsøg omkring hvor ofte nogle ting opfører sig som de gør, f.eks. i hvilken retning de bevæger sig eller andet. Generelt tror jeg meget det handler om at finde noget der ikke er en forklaring p˚a,og s˚aforsøge at finde forklaringen. Det handler nok ogs˚a meget om nysgerrighed generelt, men ogs˚arigtig ofte tilfældigheder.

120 2. Fysik og historie hænger meget sammen, fordi fænomener indenfor fysik ofte hænger meget sammen med samfundstendenser. Der kan b˚adeopst˚a spørgsm˚ali forbindelse med nogle ting i samfundet, som man ikke forst˚ar, men man s˚akan forklare med fysik, eller man kan have en ny forklaring p˚anoget indenfor fysik, som s˚ahar en stor indvirkning p˚asamfundet, f.eks. atomkraft. Jeg tror ogs˚ader er rigtig mange tin gi fysik der først kan opdages n˚arsamfundet er udviklet nok til at nogen er klar til at finde en forklaring, og at eks. teknologien er langt nok til overhovedet at udføre et forsøg der kan give svar p˚anogle ting. Det kan ogs˚ahandle meget om indstillingen og de m˚aderman forklarer verden p˚ai denne periode, f.eks. renæssancen, hvor man ikke længere fandt svar p˚aalt omkring verden i gud, dette gav mulighed for at give nye forklaringer, som ikke før havde været mulige at undersøge, og m˚aske overhovedet stille spørgsm˚alstegnved. 3. Jeg forst˚arikke hvordan fysikere afgør hvilke forsøg og indenfor hvilket omr˚adedet er relevant at undersøge, n˚arde skal finde svar p˚aet nyopdaget fænomen. Jeg forst˚arikke hvordan de definerer hvilken kategori det hører under, hvad det kan give forklaring p˚a,og hvordan man skal undersøge det.

Ch 2 1. Man er nødt til at have noget viden allerede. Man kan ikke bygge en telefon i stenalderen, n˚arman ikke engang har opfundet hjulet. Desuden er man nødt til at have en indgangsvinkel. Hvis man sætter en vilk˚arligperson ned ved et bord med alle fysiske redskaber til r˚adighed,opn˚arvedkommende intet med mindre han/hun/hen/den/det har en mission; et m˚al,et højere kald fra guds himmerige; en kommission – nej, et job. Et livs job. Man m˚a have en indgangsvinkel. Der m˚avære noget der undrer en; man m˚ahave spottet noget i naturen der vækker gnisten i ens kolde, skandinaviske øje. N˚arman s˚ahar noget der undrer en kan man opstille en hypotese. Derfra begynder rugbrødsarbejdet; hvis ikke man opfylder hypotesen i sit forsøg m˚a man vurdere hvad det er der gør at hypotesen ikke g˚ari opfyldelse. Man m˚a ændre p˚avariabler hist og her, nær og fjern, og vurdere p˚adet nye resultat! Det er sand hermeneutik. Analyser p˚aanalysen. Hold øje med hvad andre laver af arbejde; byg videre p˚adet. Her kan der i øvrigt ogs˚aopst˚aden undren som er s˚avigtig for at man overhovedet kan teste noget. ”Hvis Einstein fandt ud af at X er lig med Y; hvad mon Z s˚aer i forhold til Y?” Før eller siden finder man ud af noget; enten p˚aviserman at ens undren var idiotisk, og at der ikke er nogen sammenhæng i noget af det man havde tænkt sig at opn˚a– hvilket er ny viden i sig selv – eller ogs˚as˚aopdager man

121 en sammenhæng; og det er jo bare endnu mere brugbar viden! 2. Ørsted var tydeligvis meget inspireret af natur romantik da han opdagede elektromagnetismen. Det hænger igen sammen med ovenst˚aende punkt omhan- dlende vigtigheden bag den rigtige indgangsvinkel; Ørsteds succes opstod som resultat af at han var af den overbevisning at der m˚attevære kræfter i verdenen der hang sammen. Dette er bundet op p˚aden romantiske id´eder florerede i det 19. ˚arhundrede, om at guds rige kan findes overalt, og at al’ skønhed gentager sig over det hele – og at der er ting i livet der er større end mennesker! Romantikken, og naturromantikken gennemsyrede som bekendt Ørsteds liv, og han er et eksempel p˚aat det kan føre til ny viden inden for naturvidenskaben. Alts˚a,tendenser i kultur kan give nysgerrige sjæle den rigtige indgangsvinkel til at undersøge noget de undrer sig over. Hvis ikke der er nogen kulturel tendens, og ingen verdensforst˚aelse,s˚akan man jo heller ikke undre sig over hvordan ting hænger sammen; for der er ingen der har nogen id´eereller fundamentale teser for hvordan ting hænger sammen. S˚a man undrer sig ikke over det. Man er bare en Neandertaler der løber rundt med en kæp og samler bær. 3. I forlængelse af punkt 2: Er det muligt at gøre sig opdagelser hvis ikke der er noget grundlag for hvordan man opfatter verdenen?

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