Social Studies and the New Physics
hysics-that old stodgy science of P the seventeenth century and Sir Isaac Newton-is usually thought of as a difficult science about as far from social studies as humanly possible. During the late twentieth century, after the invention of the computer, however, physics has taken a plunge into nonlinear dynamics that has led to a major shift in our understanding of the universe around us. Could this new interpretation of the universe have any possible bearing on the way we teach social studies to our students? Let us take a brief look at this new nonlinear interpretation of the universe and then speculate about its possible impact on the field of social studies in the twenty-first century.