A child's view of physics is not as “childish” as we might think. On the contrary, it raises a series of problems that might interest an historian of science or even a physicist who, comparing the present state of physics with earlier stages of development, asks why certain ideas have been better able than others to resist the upheavals that have occurred in physics since the turn of the century. In our studies of children we have observed them playing with simple toys, questioned them about their perceptions and posed problems for them to solve. From these studies, we have learned something of the way a child's mind develops mathematical and physical concepts—such as topology, speed, time and causality—as well as something of the nature of the ideas themselves.

Topics
Physicists, Historians
1.
T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1970.
2.
J. Piaget, Scientific American, November 1953, page 74;
March 1957, page 46;
J. Piaget and B. Inhelder, Child's Concept of Space, Routledge and Paul, London, 1956.
3.
J. Piaget, Proceedings of the Symposium in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, 1970;
The Child's Conception of Physical Causality, Littlefield, Adams, Patterson, New York, 1970.
4.
A. Michotte, Perception of Causality, Basic Books, New York, 1963.
5.
A. Helmholtz, Treatise on Physiological Optics (J. P. C. Southall, ed.), Dover, New York, 1962, vols. 1,2,3.
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© 1972 American Institute of Physics.
1972
American Institute of Physics
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