Computers are now so common in our everyday life that it is difficult to
imagine the computer-free scientific life of the years before the 1980s. And yet,
in spite of an unquestionable rise, the use of computers in the realm
of education is still in its infancy. This is not
a problem with students: for the new generation,
the pre-computer age seems as far in the past as the the age of the dinosaurs. It
may instead be more a question of teacher attitude. Traditional education is based on
centuries of polished concepts and equations, while computers require us to
think differently about our method of teaching, and to revise the
content accordingly.
Our brains do not work in terms of numbers, but use abstract and visual
concepts; hence, communication between computer and man boomed when computers
escaped the world of numbers to reach a visual interface. From this time on,
computers have generated new knowledge and, more importantly for teaching,
new ways to grasp concepts. Therefore, just as real
experiments were the starting point for theory, virtual experiments
can be used to understand theoretical concepts. But there are
important differences. Some of them are fundamental: a virtual
experiment may allow for the exploration of length and time scales
together with a level of microscopic complexity
not directly accessible to conventional experiments. Others are practical:
numerical experiments are completely safe, unlike some dangerous but
essential laboratory experiments, and are often less expensive. Finally,
some numerical approaches are suited only to teaching, as the concept
necessary for the physical problem, or its solution, lies beyond the
scope of traditional methods. For all these reasons, computers open
physics courses to novel concepts, bringing education and research closer.
In addition, and this is not a minor point, they respond naturally to the basic
pedagogical needs of interactivity, feedback, and individualization of
instruction. This is why one can foresee the rapid emergence of computer-assisted education as the legitimate third standard for physics teaching,
along with the traditional use of theory and experiment.
The following papers give practical examples of physics
(or physics-related) concepts which are, or which could be,
used in present student courses. We hope that they will exemplify
the use of computers for physics
teaching (personal computers in particular), and help to illustrate that 'e-science' is becoming
a powerful and indispensable new tool for scientific education.