Magnetic vector potential in secondary school: a teachers’ path

The magnetic vector potential is traditionally presented only at university level and is widely considered as a pure mathematical tool to calculate the magnetic and the electric fields, i.e., a device without any (or at least with very poor) physical meaning. Even if, also in recent literature, many papers can be found which, on the contrary, clarify the physical meaning of the vector potential, to the best of our knowledge a clear and complete educational path on it is still missing. Our experience and some pilot experimentations with secondary school students and teachers, however, have driven us to seriously consider the opportunity to introduce the magnetic vector potential also at secondary school as a way both to better understand some fundamental aspects of classical electromagnetism and to open a door for a simple and a direct way of introducing important aspects of modern physics (i.e. the notion of the photon and the London equation of superconductivity). In this paper we’ll discuss the motivations that led us to develop an educational path for the introduction of magnetic vector potential in upper secondary school, some considerations in order to clarify general aspects of its physical meaning with examples, and the framework of our course on magnetic vector potential for preservice teachers training at the Milano TFA (Formative Active Training) course.