AbstractThe beginning of the 20th century gave birth to quantum physics. Within years it revolutionized material science and converted the theoretical foundations of modern chemistry, and to some extent even biology, to physics? new branch, molecular physics. Merger of relativistic and quantum physics soon led to the development of quantum field theory and a deeper understanding of the elementary constituents of matter. Part of this development found its way into high school textbooks as early as in the 1950s.

The game QuantoJump is developed in the programming language Java to be an educational game in quantum physics. By illustrating quantum mechanical laws of electron transitions with shapes and colours, QuantoJump hopes to spark interest and create a more intuitive understanding of quantum physics. The result is a game where the player plays as an electron in the outermost shell of an atom, with the goal of getting to the innermost shell. This while not making forbidden jumps by following the laws of electron transitions dictated by quantum physics. The programming of the game was done in the integrated develpoment environment Eclipse.

This thesis has been focused around the Diels Alder reaction with the goal to design an enzyme catalyzed reaction pathway. To achieve this goal computer aided enzyme design was utilized. Common traditional methods of computational chemistry (B3LYP, MP2) do not do well when calculating reaction barriers or even reaction energies for the Diels Alder reaction. New calcu- lation methods were developed and tested. This was the focus of the first part of the thesis, by choosing a small system, extensive and heavy calculations could be done with CBS-QB3.

This paper aims to describe and elaborate on a recent discursive change within the new-age movement. Since the seventies and the publishing of speculative popular science books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The self-aware universe by Amit Goswami, the idea that quantum physics resonates with spirituality has become the topic of hundreds of books and movies.The quantum-spiritual discourse has three distinct ways to approach quantum physics in its discussion on spirituality: The parallelistic approach which emphasizes the similarities between eastern philosophies and modern physics, the monistic-idealistic approach which tells us that mind is the foundation of matter and the scientific spiritual approach which tries to explain spiritual claims scientifically. In the quantum-spiritual discourse, quantum physical phenomena (e.g. non-locality and entanglement) are being called upon to validate metaphysical statements. The primary assumption of the discourse is that the shift of paradigm due to the establishment of modern physics also is a shift of paradigm of spirituality.With the object to examine the common claims made in the discourse, cross-references between spiritual arguments and facts of quantum physics are being made.

This paper aims to describe and elaborate on a recent discursive change within the new-age movement. Since the seventies and the publishing of speculative popular science books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The self-aware Universe by Amit Goswami, the idea that quantum physics resonates with spirituality has become the topic of hundreds of books and movies.The quantum-spiritual discourse has three distinct ways to approach quantum physics in its discussion on spirituality: The parallelistic approach which emphasizes the similarities between eastern philosophies and modern physics, the monistic-idealistic approach which tells us that mind is the foundation of matter and the scientific spiritual approach which tries to explain spiritual claims scientifically. In the quantum-spiritual discourse, quantum physical phenomena (e.g. non-locality and entanglement) are being called upon to validate metaphysical statements. The primary assumption of the discourse is that the shift of paradigm due to the establishment of modern physics also is a shift of paradigm of spirituality.With the object to examine the common claims made in the discourse, cross-references between spiritual arguments and facts of quantum physics are being made.

This study is about quantum physics and the role it can play in a religious perspective. I intend to examine how moderna physics may be related and understood as New age and Myths. My material consists of two books in the new age genre: "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra and "The Quantum Self" by Danah Zohar. My first two question to these books are which 1) religious and 2) scientific content they have. My other questions are too 3) investigate and demonstrate how these books are new age and 4) to exanine how the books can function as myths and adopt mythical features.

This thesis is about sustainability within chemistry, the so-called, green chemistry. With this work  I seek to combine green chemistry with sustainable  development  and find methods for teaching green chemistry in a laboratory environement.  I have designed  and tested two labs with ingredients of green  chemistry and sustainable development in my study. I wanted to determine if my design model  leads to conception for the students. The students have through forms and interviews declared their perspective on the education and their conception. In a laboratory environment the pros of a laboratory way of work should be recognized.

Laboratory work is a big part of chemistry education in high school. During our student training placement we have noticed that the laboratory work is not fully utilized to develop students´ chemistry knowledge. This problem made us want to investigate how the laboratory work in chemistry could be set, to become more meaningful for students. We introduced two preparation methods, and examined the outcome of students learning experiences and their acquisition of chemistry knowledge. This was examined both through surveys and observation.

Nanotechnology, one of the most interesting sciences today will no doubt have an enourmous impact on tomorrow's society and industry. One of the most interesting nanomaterial that has been discovered is the semiconductor quantum dot (QD). This material shows interesting novel properties such as a size-dependent band gap, which is an effect caused by the quantum confinement effect in all three dimensions. Due to this phenomenon the absorption spectrum can be tuned to the desired value by adjusting the size of the QD.This thesis aims to investigate how the solvent ratio of H2O/Ethanol affects the optical and structural properties of copper sulfide QDs manufactured in a chemical synthesis way using modern microwave heating. The process of manufacturing QDs using chemical synthesis often involve a capping-agent to prevent the QDs from agglomerate into bigger structures.

This thesis has been focused around the Diels Alder reaction with the goal to design an enzyme catalyzed reaction pathway. To achieve this goal computer aided enzyme design was utilized. Common traditional methods of computational chemistry (B3LYP, MP2) do not do well when calculating reaction barriers or even reaction energies for the Diels Alder reaction. New calcu- lation methods were developed and tested. This was the focus of the first part of the thesis, by choosing a small system, extensive and heavy calculations could be done with CBS-QB3.

MSB stands for Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. It?s a government organization that deals with emergencies and crises. MSB has developed a software package where the newest software version is called RIB 2012. The package includes the program RIB Karta.

The aim of this study is to investigate how chemistry teachers at secondary school anduniversities work with learning strategies and models of perception. This thesis leans on theworks of Lev Vygotskij and his likes but also on the theory of conceptual metaphors by GeorgeLakoff and Mark Johnson as a tool to analyze the collected data.The Empirical data that this study is based upon have been collected through semi-structuredinterviews with teachers as primary respondents.The study has resulted in a two practical assignments for secondary school which are builtaround the concept of open assignments. This thesis has also generated a suggestion for a newstructure of the bachelor programme in chemistry at KTH..

The aim of this study is to investigate how and in which form students come in contact with practical applications in the upper secondary school course Chemistry B. The study is based upon the assumption that all learning is situated in a social environment. The theoretical framework is the design theory perspective, which entails an assumption that the pedagogical tools affect the knowledge content.The empiric materials in the study are collected through three methods: textbook analysis, classroom observations and questionnaires. Two groups of students and their teachers were observed during a section of the relevant course. The textbook analysis focuses upon the same course section in the textbooks of the two groups and compares these books with the relevant section in a third textbook.

Increasing attention is being given to acid sulphate soils wherever they occur. The problems that leaching sulphate soils gives with significant lowerings of pH and mobilization of heavy metals influence large spectra of our society from fisheries to agriculture to construction. Mapping these soils is consequently of great importance and the methods of doing this is very much lacking in function and precision. This study was therefore carried out to investigate whether conductivity in running water can be used as a simple instrument to identify acid sulphate soils in the catchment. 31 coastal streams in the county of Västerbotten were analyzed for different catchment properties such as occurence of marine sediments and basic water chemistry including conductivity and sulphate.

This study examines the scholarly communication activities in two scientific fields, chemistry and economics, in a Polish context. The dissertation aims at investigating what characterises the publishing choices of researchers and what supplementary forms for the dissemination of research output are used by scholars. In addition, the paper is looking into what are the views and awareness of open access and institutional repositories within this scientific community. This thesis gives the results of semi-structured interviews and an online survey at two academic faculties at a Polish technical university. As its theoretical framework, the study uses Whitley?s theory of the intellectual and social organisation of academic fields and Latour and Woolgar?s study regarding various motivations for publishing.