What Synergy between Mathematics and Physics is Feasible or Imaginable at Different Level of Education?

Abstract

For interdisciplinarity between physics and mathematics to take its proper place in secondary schools, its value must be demonstrated and used during the future teacher’s university education. We have observed from examples and surveys, however, that an ever-widening gulf is emerging between degree courses in mathematics and physics. This article therefore develops comparative approaches to some common concepts to demonstrate their complementarities from the angle of the relation between mechanics and analysis. The example of the differential, which is described as an obstacle to the “mathematization” of physics (Karam et al. 2015), is used to transform it into a tool to aid conceptualization, offering a dual approach to the concepts and their applications. This should enable students to have a better understanding that is related to their specific curriculum.