| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this research is to show how the changing role of mathematics in physics in the first half of the 20th century was reflected on the mathematics in physics education. I have focused on Leiden University, in the period between 1912 and 1940. In this period quantum theory changed the mathematics used by physicists.
Hendrik Antonie Kramers is studied in detail, because he was both a student and a professor of physics at Leiden University in this period. As a result, he provides the ideal case study to find out what a physics study was like both in the 1910s and the 1930s at Leiden University.
In this study is shown how the mathematics curriculum did not change and the mathematical training for the candidates exams stayed the same as well. It was Kramers, as professor of physics, who lectured on subjects of abstract mathematics. But he lectured only on those parts he deemed crucial and the other aspects of modern mathematics did not find their way to Leiden University in the 1930s. | |
