Democratizing access to scientific knowledge is the mission of Unicamp professor André Assis. The professor at the Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (IFGW) is responsible for translations into Portuguese and English of classic works by authors such as the Greek Archimedes (c. 287-212 BC), the Englishman Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the Frenchmen Charles Augustin de Coulomb (1736-1806) and André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836), and the German Wilhelm Weber (1804-1891).
His most recent work is the “Weber’s Works on Electrodynamics Translated and Annotated,” published in four volumes in 2025 by the Canadian publisher Apeiron. Assis had already edited, with the help of German and American colleagues, the annotated translation from German to English. “It is the largest work I have ever translated and the one that required the most work,” he said.
The goal of this effort is to allow teachers, students, and interested individuals to learn about the original ideas of these thinkers. "These are extremely important works, but they involve a question of paradigm shifts: when there is a dominant line of thought, sometimes there is no interest in translating other lines of thought," explained Assis.
In 2022, the professor also published an annotated translation, from French to Portuguese, of Coulomb's works on torsion balances, electricity, and magnetism. He then joined forces with Louis L. Bucciarelli, a retired professor at... MIT (MIT, USA), to publish, in 2023, the annotated translation of these materials in English.
Until recently, many of these works did not have versions even in English, such as Ampère's work, originally published in 1826, which has now been translated with commentary into English and Portuguese — in a joint effort with João Paulo Chaib, a former doctoral student of Assis.
“In the case of electromagnetism, we follow the line of Field Theory of [Michael] Faraday and [James Clerk] Maxwell, two Englishmen. The French and German lines were abandoned,” the professor argued.
Assis has already received two Jabuti awards in the "Exact Sciences" category, in 1996 and 2012, for books published by Editora da Unicamp:Weber's electrodynamics"and "Ampère's electrodynamicsThe first is a book about Weber's theory, and the second is an annotated translation from French to Portuguese of Ampère's most important work, entitled "Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena".
Most of the works are available for free on a website It is maintained by the professor and is aimed at high school and undergraduate students in the fields of physics and engineering, as well as those interested in the history of science.
Paradigm shift
Assis has been teaching at Unicamp since 1989 and, for almost 40 years, has been conducting research in the area of physics foundations, Weberian electrodynamics, and relational mechanics. During his undergraduate studies at the institution, the professor had his first contact with the authors whose ideas he seeks to disseminate.
“There were issues in the standard theory that didn’t satisfy me, so I found my way into history of science books – that’s how I discovered Weber and Ampère’s force between current elements [which describes the mutual interaction between two sections of conducting wires carrying current], topics that aren’t studied in textbooks,” he reported.
The professor highlighted that the lack of translations of these works hindered access to them and, at times, led to pedagogical distortions. “This is what happens with Ampère: what we call 'Ampère's Circuital Law,' he himself never wrote. Now, people can read the French physicist's own words and see that, on the first page of the work, he is arguing against what is defended in textbooks.”
According to Assis, the possibility of reading original sources and confronting ideas is revolutionary for the civic and scientific education of future scientists, allowing researchers to form and defend their own convictions.
This movement also helps in understanding that the production of scientific knowledge is not linear, but occurs amidst a process of contesting ideas. "They are cycles. Sometimes, an old idea is reborn with modifications."
An example of this, according to the professor, is the Heliocentric Theory (which proposes that the sun is at the center of the Solar System, and the planets revolve around it). "It's a theory from the time of Archimedes, but it was abandoned. It took two thousand years until Nicolaus Copernicus [who presented the heliocentric mathematical model in the 16th century] appeared and revived this idea, which is the theory we follow today."
Assis, together with Ceno Pietro Magnaghi, published an annotated translation from Greek to Portuguese of the work "The Method of Archimedes: Analysis and Annotated Translation". "In this fundamental work, Archimedes shows how he used physics to deduce purely mathematical results. In particular, he used the law of the lever to calculate, for the first time in history, the volume and area of a sphere. It is a text that was lost for two thousand years," he explained.
Unlike the case of the British biologist Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton – an equally celebrated name – had not yet had his work fully translated into Portuguese, explains Assis.
Science in practice
The professor translated “Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,” Newton's 1687 work containing the famous three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation. “It is considered by many authorities to be the greatest scientific work of all time.” He also translated “Optics,” which recounts Newton's experiments with prisms, his theory of colors, the construction of the reflecting telescope, among other things. “The Newtonian telescope has no lenses, only mirrors, and is used by satellites such as the…” Hubble and James Webb”, He stressed.
Assis also worked with the articles of the English amateur physicist Stephen Gray (1666-1736), a contemporary of Newton, in partnership with Sílvio Luiz Bragatto and João José Caluzi, resulting in the publication of “Stephen Gray and the Discovery of Conductors and Insulators: Annotated Translation of His Articles on Electricity and Reproduction of His Main Experiments”. In this work, the authors also reproduced Gray's experiments with low-cost materials. “This is very interesting to show that a good part of these experiments can be done with accessible materials, as well as some of Newton's experiments,” said the professor, who dedicates himself to projects within this theme.
Assis pointed out that this material in Portuguese could be used by high school teachers for classroom application. "This would greatly enrich physics education in Brazil."
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Works written and translated into Portuguese by André Assis:
– AKT Assis, “Weber’s Works on Electrodynamics Translated and Commented”, Volume 4: “Conservation of Energy, Weber’s Planetary Model for the Atom, the Unification of Electromagnetism with Gravitation, and Weber’s Electrodynamics Against Field Theories” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2025), 484 pages, ISBN: 9781987980431.
– AKT Assis, “Weber’s Works on Electrodynamics Translated and Commented”, Volume 3: “Measurement of Weber’s Constant c, Diamagnetism, the Telegraph Equation, and the Propagation of Electric Waves at the Speed of Light” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2025), 518 pages, ISBN: 9781987980417.
– AKT Assis, “Weber’s Works on Electrodynamics Translated and Commented”, Volume 2: “Weber’s Force and the Unification of the Laws of Coulomb, Ampère and Faraday” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2025), 507 pages, ISBN: 9781987980394.
– AKT Assis, “Weber’s Works on Electrodynamics Translated and Commented”, Volume 1: “Biography, Magnetism, Unipolar Induction, and the Absolute System of Units of Gauss and Weber” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2025), 443 pages, ISBN: 9781987980370.
– AKT Assis, “Annotated Translation of Coulomb’s Principal Works on Electricity and Magnetism” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2022), 515 pages, ISBN-10: 198798031X and ISBN-13: 978-1987980318.
– CP Magnaghi and AKT Assis, “The Archimedes Method: Analysis and Annotated Translation” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2019), 234 pages, ISBN-10: 1987980174 and ISBN-13: 978-1987980172.
– AKT Assis, “The Experimental and Historical Foundations of Electricity”, Volume 2 (Apeiron, Montreal, 2018), 312 pages, ISBNs: 978-1-987980-09-7 (print) and 978-1-987980-12-7 (pdf).
– AKT Assis and CP Magnaghi, “The Illustrated Method of Archimedes: Using the Law of the Lever to Calculate Areas, Volumes, and Centers of Gravity” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2014), 51 pages, ISBN: 9780992045678.
– AKT Assis, KH Wiederkehr and G. Wolfschmidt, “Weber’s Planetary Model of the Atom” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2014), 102 pages, ISBN: 9780992045654.
– AKT Assis, “Relational Mechanics and Implementation of Mach's Principle with the Gravitational Weber Force” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2013), 459 pages, ISBN: 9780986492693.
– SLB Boss, AKT Assis and JJ Caluzi, “Stephen Gray and the Discovery of Conductors and Insulators: Annotated Translation of His Articles on Electricity and Reproduction of His Main Experiments” (Editora Cultura Acadêmica da Unesp, São Paulo, 2012), 458 pages, ISBN: 9788579833748.
– AKT Assis and JPM d. C. Chaib, “Ampère’s Electrodynamics: Analysis of the meaning and evolution of Ampère’s force, together with the annotated translation of his main work on electrodynamics” (Unicamp Press, Campinas, 2011), 589 pages, ISBN: 9788526809383.
– AKT Assis, “The Experimental and Historical Foundations of Electricity” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2010), 274 pages, ISBN: 9780986492617. This book was also published in Brazil: AKT Assis, The Experimental and Historical Foundations of Electricity (LF Editorial, São Paulo, 2011), 266 pages, ISBN: 9788578610975.
– AKT Assis and JA Hernandes, “The Electric Force of a Current: Weber and the Surface Charges of Resistive Conductors with Constant Currents,” (Edusp and Edufal, São Paulo and Maceió, 2009), 256 pages, Volume 73 of the Academic Collection, ISBNs: 9788531411236 (Edusp) and 9788571774315 (Edufal).
– AKT Assis, “Archimedes, the Center of Gravity and the Law of the Lever” (Apeiron, Montreal, 2008), 243 pages, ISBN: 9780973291179. This book was also published in Brazil: AKT Assis, “Archimedes, the Center of Gravity and the Law of the Lever” (LF Editorial, São Paulo, 2011), 236 pages, ISBN: 9788578611057.
– AKT Assis, “A New Physics” (Perspectiva Publishing House, São Paulo, 1999), 176 pages, ISBN: 85-273-0199-7, Volume 1 of the Big Bang Collection (edited by Gita K. Ginsburg).
– AKT Assis, “Relational Mechanics” (Publisher of the Center for Logic and Epistemology – CLE of UNICAMP/FAPESP, Campinas, Brazil, 1998), 349 pages, ISBN: 8586497010.
– M. Bueno and AKT Assis, “Calculation of Inductance and Force in Electrical Circuits” (Apeiron, Montreal, second edition, 2015), 209 pages, ISBN: 9781987980011.
– AKT Assis, “Weber's Electrodynamics: Theory, Applications and Exercises” (University of Campinas Press, Campinas, Brazil, second edition, 2015), 212 pages, e-ISBN: 978-85-268-1240-6. AKT Assis, “Weber's Electrodynamics: Theory, Applications and Exercises” (University of Campinas Press, Campinas, Brazil, first edition, 1995), 195 pages. ISBN: 8526803581.
– AKT Assis, “Weber's Electrodynamics Course"(Institute of Physics, UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil, 1992), 140 pages. IFGW Physics Notes Number 5." Book in PDF format. (3Mb).
Check out more information about the works and options for download and acquisition here.
