John Tyndall(1820-1894), Who Brought Physics and the Public Together

Abstract

The developments of science education until the middle of the 20th century were often driven by personal ideas and achievements of some influential individual scientists (e:g. T. H. Huxley, H. E. Armstrong, L. Hogben, J. Conant), while that of the 2nd half of the 20th century can be characterized as collective efforts through various research groups of science educators (e.g. PSSC, HPP, Nuffield, SATIS). In this respect, John Tyndall(1820-1894), a physicist of the Victorian England best known as Tyndall's Effect, can be considered as one of the great scientists who had a big influence on science teaching and the popularization of science before science secured its place in school curricula. Tyndall worked as a research scientist at the Royal Institution of London, where various lectures and demonstrations of physical sciences were regularly performed for general public, and he was particularly famous for his fascinating physics demonstrations. In this study, we will summarize his activities and achievements as a teacher as well as a popularizer of physics, illustrate some of his famous demonstrations and his ideas concerning physics teaching and discuss implications to today's physics education.