Didactical situations to treat Lorentz and Galileo transformations in theoretical physics

Abstract

Notions of Electromagnetism and Special Theory of Relativity (STR) require important mathematical knowledge applied to theoretical physics. Recognizing pedagogical difficulties in the teaching of theoretical physics, the Theory of Didactical Situations (TDS), which consists of a set of practices that aim to contribute to the improvement of mathematics teaching. In this context, the present work is motivated to present a set of practices based on TDS with a focus on teaching Electromagnetism and STR, where problems that require an understanding of the transformations of Galileo and Lorentz. Specifically, the didactic situation is constructed by means of four problem proposals, while in the adidatic situation, the student is invited to understand the roles of these transformations in the study of these problems. Ultimately, the relevance of the educator in the institutionalization situation is reinforced, a moment when it must be clarified how all mathematical relations are strongly related to physical principles.