Encourage Mayers and Helmholtzs

The EPS has appealed to celebrate the centenary of Einstein's special
relativity in 2005, in various possible ways but with more emphasis on the PAP -
the Public Awareness of Physics, visit: http://wyp2005.org One possible way of
doing this is to identify and encourage budding Mayers and Helmholtzs, in
schools and colleges because 19th century saw non-physicists making significant
contributions in physics. For example, Julius R. von Mayer (1814 to 1878) and
Hermann L. F. Helmholtz (1821 to 1894). Both made monumental contributions in
thermodynamics.

But 20th century did not see such transitions due to the rigidity of courses.
This rigidity is, in fact, against the motto of physics - that is physics in
everywhere and so it can be taught / learnt by anybody any where. Therefore we
have to encourage formation of groups of amateur physicists, all over the world,
regardless of their age, academic background etc. I greatly feel the need of
doing this because I am a trained biochemist but doing useful research in the
logical aspects of learning / teaching of basic physics. More information can
be found in my essay: A problem in learning Bohr's theory of hydrogen atom, in
the CEI of IUPAC, visit: http://www.iupac.org/publications/cei/vol.2.AN-7 or see
my Letter, dedicated to the memory of Prof. Dennis Sciama, in the COSPAR
Information Bulletin # 152, p. 53, Dec. 2001.

Dileep V. Sathe, dileepsathe@...
Dadawala Jr. College, 1433 Kasba Peth, Pune, MH, 411011, India

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