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His interest in
physics began at a young age, and once he completed his education he
quickly rose through the ranks and in early
adulthood soon became the director in the Department of Physics and of
Curricular Programs. Later he became a director at the Atomic and
Molecular Physics Headquarters. However, even with such a distinguished
career, Professor Barbosa's first love was in
the education of Physics. He wanted to ensure that students would
incorporate the concepts of science and physics into their everyday life.
In describing himself, Barbosa will repeat
Einstein's definition of physicists, "a philosopher in worker
clothes."
Barbosa's specific field of study has
related to the study of light and its complex properties. The Theory of
Maxwell indicated to him that light was an electromagnetic wave, but
Quantum theory seeded new doubts in him when he found that the atoms emit
light. The he began to study how that light is held, how it behaves, why
atoms emit light, and how they interact with matter.
It is this same
attitude of questioning and searching that also led Barbosa
to ponder pedagogical methodologies for teaching Physics as a dynamic
reality in the daily world. He soon saw that most students struggled with
the limited imagination presented in textbooks that described Physics
only in terms of equations. Instead he strove to provide a visual mechanism
for teaching concepts--one that would allow students to actually
"see" the changing physical phenomenon. In this search, he
found that the "computer is an incomparable tool to go toward that
objective."
In pursuit of
knowledge, Barbosa has been fortunate to travel
to many places in the world and meet with other physicists. He has been
to Japan, Germany, the United States, Brazil, Chile, Sweden, and Italy to
participate in seminars, conferences, specialization courses and
investigative works with other physicists.
Recently Barbosa has also dedicated himself to changing
educational policies in his country to be more accessible to larger
numbers of people and to increase the education budget. You can contact
Dr. Barbosa via email.
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