Textbooks of The Physical Sciences and The History of Science

Abstract

That the use of episodes from the history of science and technology is particularly beneficial to the teaching of the sciences has been well documented and there have been interesting proposals of how to further elaborate a trend that has already been welcomed by many teachers and textbook writers. No one doubts the positive effects of historically informed science textbooks. All too often, historical notes interspersed throughout the text books, photographs of old instruments or of well known scientific figures, short biographies, stories about priority disputes, anecdotes from the lives of scientists, even excerpts from original texts, excite the imagination of students and give the opportunity to many teachers to make their teaching more lively and effective.