Brazil; E-mail: freirejr@ufba.br ABSTRACT Finding the best ways to introduce quantum physics to undergraduate students in all scientific areas, in particular for chemistry students, is a pressing, but hardly a simple task. In this paper, we discuss the relevance of taking into account lessons from the history of the discipline and the ongoing controversy over its interpretations and foundations in the search for new ways of improving the teaching of quantum physics. We also review and discuss the recent research in science education literature that proposes new ways of introducing quantum mechanics for undergraduate students. From these discussions, we suggest some possibilities -the inclusion of philosophical interpretations and their defense; the emphasis on strictly quantum features of the systems; an emphasis on formalism, without worrying about the ultimate ontological status of mathematics; the incorporation of quantum mechanics applications to real problems; and the need to introduce complementarity when using images -which can be taken into account when devising more effective ways of teaching introductory quantum mechanics for chemistry students.

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Resumo: Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa qualitativa sobre as concepções de estudantes de física da Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana (UEFS), Brasil, acerca da natureza da ciência e sua transformação por uma abordagem contextual do ensino de física. Esta abordagem foi desenvolvida em uma disciplina que aborda a mecânica clássica tendo em conta as dimensões históri-cas e filosóficas da atividade científica. Para a coleta de dados, utilizamos o questionário VNOS-C e entrevistas semiestruturadas. Os dados foram sistematizados por meio da construção de categorias baseadas nas respostas dos estudantes e, em seguida, foram submetidos a uma análise qualitativa. Os resultados apontaram para uma mudança significativa e favorável das concepções dos estudantes sobre a natureza da ciência em vários aspectos, a despeito da dificuldade observada de superação de algumas noções profundamente enraizadas em suas visões epistemológicas.Palavras-chave: Abordagem contextual. Natureza da Ciência. Ensino de Física.Abstract: This paper reports the results from qualitative research about Physics' students conceptions of the nature of science in a Brazilian public university, namely Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana (UEFS). We also address how these conceptions have been changed by a contextual approach to physics teaching. This approach was developed in a course that deals with Classical Mechanics, taking into account the historical and philosophical dimensions of scientific work. Data were gathered by means of the questionnaire VNOS-C and semi-structured interviews. To systematize the data, categories were constructed based on the students' answers and, subsequently, were qualitatively analyzed. The results showed a significant and positive change in the students' conceptions about the nature of science in several respects, despite the difficulty of overcoming notions deeply rooted in their epistemological views.

DAVID BOHM WAS among the most promising students of his generation when he took his degree in 1943. He got a position at Princeton, did research on plasma theory, and published a well received graduate textbook entitled Quantum theory. But in 1951, his life suffered two important changes. He became a victim of McCarthyʼs anticommunist hysteria and he changed his research focus to a causal interpretation of quantum mechanics. Those two changes were a turning point in his personal and scientifi c life. In the McCarthy period, Bohm could not survive in American academia. He obtained a position in Brazil, but did not enjoy it there. However, having had his passport confi scated by American offi cials, it was as a Brazilian citizen that he left Brazil in January 1955 to take a position at the Technion in Haifa. Two years later he went to England, where he fi nally found a convenient place to pursue his research for the rest of his prolonged exile. His main scientifi c interests remained in the unorthodox subject he began to work on in 1951, but from 1970 on he shifted his approach to what he called "implicit order." 1

This paper deals with the ways that the issue of completing quantum mechanics was brought into laboratories and became a topic in mainstream quantum optics. It focuses on the period between 1965, when the Bell published what we now call Bell's theorem, and 1982, when Aspect published the results of his experiments. Discussing some of those past contexts and practices, I show that factors in addition to theoretical innovations, experiments, and techniques were necessary for the flourishing of this subject, and that the experimental implications of Bell's theorem were neither suddenly recognized nor quickly highly regarded by physicists. Indeed, I will argue that what was considered good physics after Aspect's 1982 experiments was once considered by many a philosophical matter instead of a scientific one, and that the path from philosophy to physics required a change in the physics community's attitude about the status of the foundations of quantum mechanics.

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