Uma proposta de ensino de tópicos de mecânica quântica sob a ótica de Bachelard

Abstract

Considering the complexity of the microscopic world representation and the abstraction need-ed for a nowadays representation, we identify in this work (i) possible epistemological obstacles that influenced the construction and the historical development of quantum mechanics and (ii) some epistemological obstacles existing in the textbooks of Modern Physics. We characterize the epistemological ruptures as a discontinuity occurring in the historical devel-opment and also as an inadequacy between the common knowledge and the scientific one. Using a psychoanalysis in the objective knowledge that was used in the overcoming of the epistemological obstacles and in the correction of the alternative conceptions of the students, we develop a non realistic teaching sequence and elaborate support texts for the study of the wave-particle duality in (a) the electron double slits experiment, (b) the Mach-Zender interferometer and (c) the matter-radiation interaction in the photoelectric effect. Besides the fact that the wave-particle is an important notion in quantum physics, we would like to emphasize that a measure in quantum scale is related to the concept that the interaction of atomic objects with measuring instruments is an integrated part of quantum phenomena (complementary principle). Since ontological and epistemological philosophical approaches can generate strategies and activities involving the imagination and abstraction needed to understand new theories, we present in this work a brief discussion about scientific realism and anti-realism. We also present a short historical description of this philosophical debate that can and should be realized in classroom. Our work is theoretical based in the historical epistemology of Bachelard.