Physics module:
Provide a comprehensive picture of the development of physics between the nineteenth and early twentieth century, outlining the main figures of scientists and the different currents of thought that intertwined and contrasted at that time. In particular, it is intended to highlight the profound link between developments in the physical sciences and the cutural and productive context in which they fit. It is also intended to highlight how the relationship between science, culture and the world of production evolved along paths that led post-Newtonian physics to a progressive abandonment of the mechanistic foundations of scientific explanation and to the development of theoretical models that created the basis for the definitive overcoming of mechanicism, up to the foundations of modern science, represented by quantum theories and relativity.
Chemistry module:
Present an overview of Chemistry from Alchemy to the 20th century, outlining the main themes and conceptual acquisitions that have characterized its evolution. We will briefly illustrate the assumptions of the development of scientific thought from the Pre-Socratic period to the Renaissance, the historical and cultural implications of the context in which Chemistry developed, also in relation to Physics and other experimental disciplines.
Prerequisites
n/a
Teaching Methods
Lectures in the classroom (in presence and/or from remote).
Type of Assessment
The exam consists of two written papers, one in History of Physics and one in History of Chemistry, on topics indicated by the teachers.
Course program
CHEMISTRY:
Introduction to the History of Chemistry. The beginnings of the use and production of materials and processes.
Scientific thought in pre-Socratic philosophy: Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, Pythagoras, the Harmonics and Kepler, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus and Democritus, the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle. The Aristotelians and Galileo. The mechanism.
Introduction to Chemistry, khemeia. Alchemy. From Magna Graecia to the Middle Ages. Iatrochemistry and the developments of the Renaissance. The beginnings of chemistry. From the 17th to the 18th century. Boyle and Lavoisier. The development of the concept of heat. The vis vitalis. The development of Organic Chemistry. Stereochemistry. The development of Physical Chemistry: ion dissociation, Arrhenius. The concept of activity, the Debye-Hückel theory, the interionic interactions, Nernst and the third law of thermodynamics. The development of the Voltaic battery, from zinc to lithium. The development of the Periodic Table of the Elements.