The discovery of quantum mechanics in the beginning of our century led to a revolution of physical world view. Modern experiments on the border of the classical and the quantum regime made possible by new techniques open better insight and understanding of the quantum world and have impact on new technological development. Therefore it seems important that students and even pupils at higher grades become acquainted with the principles of quantum mechanics. The first question to be answered is: why should quantum theory be taught at school at all? For choosing this topic there are the following three reasons: 1. Quantum theory is the fundamental theory of modern physics. It plays a significant role in nearly all modern developments of physics. Many
The discovery of quantum mechanics in the beginning of our century led to a revolution of physical world view. Modern experiments on the border of the classical and the quantum regime made possible by new techniques open better insight and understanding of the quantum world and have impact on new technological development. Therefore it seems important that students and even pupils at higher grades become acquainted with the principles of quantum mechanics. The first question to be answered is: why should quantum theory be taught at school at all? For choosing this topic there are the following three reasons: 1. Quantum theory is the fundamental theory of modern physics. It plays a significant role in nearly all modern developments of physics. Many
The discovery of quantum mechanics at the beginning of our century led to a revolution of the physical world view. Modern experiments, made possible by new techniques on the border of the classical and the quantum regimes, offer new insights and better understanding of the quantum world and have an impact on new technological development. Therefore it seems important that students at university and in the final years of high school gain an appreciation of the principles of quantum mechanics. A suitable way seems to be through treatment of the EPR gedanken experiment (thought experiment).
Quantum mechanics (QM) has taken on a paradigmatic role in how physics describes and builds new knowledge about the world. It also has a growing role in our society thanks to recent and rapid developments in the field of new quantum technologies. These are becoming increasingly important in our society, in the world of work and which will also decisively influence future socio-economic choices. Also for this reason QM has an increasing role in the education of young people and has been introduced in many different ways also in secondary school in all continents. The change in the theoretical and cultural frame has profound implications that are often not intuitive, which involve the appropriation of a specific way of thinking. Neither macroscopic phenomenology, nor intuition help, because there is no simple evidence of how quantum objects must be thought to interpret that unobservable microscopic world and for which we must enter another interpretative paradigm even if we want to limit ourselves to describe it. PER has carried out several studies on the learning of key concepts, on the learning nodes, the ways of reasoning, the difficulties of the students, their spontaneous ideas, according to two main strands: above all at university level, conceptual difficulties and misunderstandings often linked to a formal approach, which, moreover, underpins the very nature of the entities involved; at secondary school level in relation to how students acquire a quantum view of phenomena on the basis of specific approaches adopted to address QM. In particular, a vast literature, which has increased considerably and especially in relatively recent times, has studied how university students deal with certain concepts such as that of state, superposition, measurement in quantum mechanics rather than how quantum quantities evolve over time. These studies are based on the use of questionnaires that allow to explore different levels: the verbal, formal and representative one, with different representations (eg. wave function, Dirac notation), rather than different representative modes (eg. Graphs of probability amplitudes, or probability distributions). At the secondary school level, the most important studies on student learning were instead conducted evaluating the educational impact and outlining the learning paths of students who had followed formative activities based on differentiated innovative research-based educational paths. In particular, the learning outcomes were compared to those activated by proposals based on the historical reconstruction approach of quantum physics. This approach is privileged in traditional curricula and school texts and consequently in the ways of teachers approaching the topic. It was developed in schools with a narrative or descriptive dimension of solutions based on old physics of quanta for the interpretation of phenomena not explained by classical physics. The innovative approaches instead make use of contexts whose formal treatment is simple (quantum properties described in a two-state space such as polarization or spin) with the aid of simulations that compensate for the problem of students” limited mathematical-formal skills, avoiding any historical reference. In particular, there is a significant difference between the survey tools and the survey contexts in the high school environment compared to surveys conducted with university students. This paper presents a review of the research literature, focusing in particular on the learning processes of secondary school students and outlining how research perspectives have evolved.
Quantum Mechanics is being included in numerous school programmes as part of the curriculum. Most modern textbooks introduce it emphasising its strange or, at least uncommon, somewhat paradoxical, character. We argue that such an approach is wrong because rather than attracting the interest of students toward the topic, it makes quantum mechanics almost unbelievable and artificial. The resulting perception is that quantum mechanics is in fact not understood at all and that we need a new theory that eventually will supersede it. In contrast, we propose a new approach on classical physics that, stressing the role of the measurements in physics, introduces the concept of state very early in the curriculum. Such a concept is reviewed on each classical physics topic and the concept of force as a vector is almost abandoned for the concept of interaction defined as something that change the state. In this way it is possible to introduce quantum mechanics without violating any conviction the students acquired learning classical physics. In other words quantum mechanics appears to be as natural as classical physics, at least from the point of view of the results of the experiments.
For over nine decades, quantum mechanics has profoundly shaped our understanding of nature, offering explanations for the stability of atoms, the formation of mole cules, the properties of materials, and phenomena such as light or radioactivity. It is essential to modern technologies—from microchips to lasers—and underpins the physics of elementary particles. Yet, despite its successes, it remains a deeply mysterious theory, confronting a central enigma: why does the quantum world behave so differently from everyday reality? Elements such as superposition and quantum entanglement—which allow particles to exist simultaneously in multiple states or remain interconnected regardless of distance—contradict classical world intuitions. This gap between microscopic and macroscopic behavior has given rise to what is known as the “measurement problem,” raising fundamental questions about the nature of reality. Diverging interpretations have led to two major schools of thought: anti-realism, promoted by Niels Bohr, which holds that reality depends on the observer and their interaction with measurement instruments; and realism, supported by Albert Einstein, which argues that quantum mechanics is incomplete and that eality exists independently of observation. Bohr’s complementary philosophy and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle were central to the formulation of the “Copenhagen interpretation,” which became dominant in the 20th century. However, the persistent opposition of scientists like Einstein and Schrödinger inspired generations of physicists to seek a unification between quantum mechanics and relativity, culminating in new theories such as loop quantum gravity and string theory. Thus, the debate between realism and anti-realism remains alive, and philosophy continues to play a crucial role in exploring the new foundations of physics.
Teaching and learning QM at high school as well as the undergraduate level is a highly non-trivial task. Indeed, major changes are required in understanding the new physical reality, and students have to deal with counterintuitive concepts such as uncertainty and entanglement as well as advanced mathematical tools. In order to overcome these critical issues, a simple approach is presented here, which is based solely on two-vector and 2 × 2 matrix algebra. Furthermore, it could also enable educational institutions to fill the gap between high school curricula and the current scientific and technological advances in physics by allowing students to gain some insight into topics such as qubits and quantum computers. The inspiration behind our proposal as well as its firm theoretical foundation are based on the famous Umdeutung (reinterpretation) paper by W. Heisenberg, which introduces QM in matrix form.
At the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, deep crisis of the physics promoted itself great revolution, thus the quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity emerged. The establishment of quantum theory, opened the people to know the microcosm, has laid the solid rationale for the physics and even the entire natural sciences development. No one branch of modern physics and correlated peripheral subjects are not based on quantum .Quantum theory are changing modern science and technology profoundly and influencing humanity's thought as well. Reviewing the development of the course, we can feel the far-reaching influence of the quantum theory on the people's epistemology and the world outlook.