In 1820 the Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism by his famous wire-compass experiment. Ørsted was one of the foremost scientists of the nineteenth century, and he was also one of the leading figures in Denmark in the 19th century with a vital influence in the fields of aesthetics,…

This article reports on an experimental scheme in adult education designed for people with curiosity about, but limited formal education in, science. It is offered within a department of humanities and focuses on "ideas" drawn from science, rather than on facts, phenomena or formulae. It involves different approaches to teaching,…

Discusses formal-economical/epistemic-powerful features of physics formulas: the first puts constructs in logical relations to each other, reducing constructs to symbols; the second describes the correspondence which links the construct to natural events. Implications of the dual nature of formulas (considered as efficient learning tools) for…