260064 SE Consolidation of Physics II and Didactical Aspects (2011S)

The seminar investigates the following questions: What is physics and what are physicists interested in? What is so specific in the method of physics for understanding nature? How to appraise the historic contribution of physics for the modern spirit and the physics view of the world. Starting point is Ernst Mach s publication "Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung". On the basis of syllabuses of original publications we will study the ideas that enter Mach¿s philosophy and its critical review by his contemporaries. On our program are the following authors: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, Immanuel Kant, Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Boltzmann, Max Planck, Wilhelm Ostwald, Heinrich Hertz, Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin, Albert Einstein, Carl Friedrich v. Weizsäcker.