“There Are no Things Inside Things”: An Augmented Lecture to Bridge the Gap Between Formal and Informal Physics Education

After 13 years of research about how to make scientific theater a pow-erful tool in physics education [see for instance: 1-3], the group “Lo Spettacolo della Fisica” (The Physics Show) (http://spettacolo.fisica.unimi.it) of the Uni-versity of Milan, together with Stefano Oss of the University of Trento and An-drea Brunello of the Arditodesio Theater Company (Trento, Italy) created and developed the idea of “Augmented Lectures” (ALs). These are lectures per-formed in a theatrical setting with the help of professional actors (and/or of paint-ers, musicians, cooks, etc.) with the aim not only to create fascination and passion for physics, but to make people think and reflect on some specific disciplinary topic as well. Although ALs do not need any specific disciplinary preparation, they can, nonetheless, be seen as complementary lectures that can be part of a secondary, or even of a university, formal path in physics. In the augmented lec-ture titled, “There Are No Things Inside Things” (TANTIT), the theme “what is understanding?” is tackled starting from the proprieties of a magnet and devel-oped with the analysis of the double slit experiment in different settings: from the “classical” photons and electrons experiments, up to those with atoms, fullerenes and tetraphenylporphyrin. Experiments with neutrons and interaction-free meas-urements are also analysed. At the basis of quantum mechanics, there is elegance and simplicity; and it is precisely the simplicity of this theory – clearly related to its power – that upsets us, because, on the contrary, the world we are used to is complicated. Some of the peculiarities of quantum physics, and of the conceptual challenges they present to the descendants of fruit pickers and animal hunters as we are, are therefore a stimulus to discuss the meaning of explaining and under-standing, in physical sciences [4]. A physicist (the author) and an actor (Giacomo Anderle) act together with real data, experiments, songs, dances, equations – also involving the audience on stage – having in mind that culture is culture only if it changes your life. The aims and the structure of the augmented lecture TANTIT firstly performed inside the “Teatro della Meraviglia” (Theater of Wonder) festi-val in Trento (www.teatrodellameraviglia.it/) will be presented and briefly dis-cussed together with its potentialities.