The concept of historical approach, in the context of Physics Education, must not be understood as a method to place the main scientific discoveries and innovations from a purely historical-chronological point of view. On the contrary, it should be considered as a means to provide the student with the knowledge necessary to fully understand the development of a specific physical concept, within a specific historical-political, socio-economic and cultural reference framework.
The following Graphical Abstract is reported as an example, relating to a work in which it was chosen to proceed with a historical approach, retracing the phases of Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier’s scientific contribution starting from the historical-political and socio-cultural context and from the reconstruction of the character.
For the historical reconstruction, various documents from the time and beyond were used, trying to provide the reader with all the elements necessary to understand and contextualise the nature and psyche of J. Fourier in the historical context, elements which have always shown a parallelism with his activity as a scientist.
