What happened to modern physics?

Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Chaos theory are three of the most significant scientific advances of the 20th Century - each fundamentally changing our understanding of the physical universe. The authors ask why the UK National Curriculum in science almost entirely ignores them. Children and young people regularly come into contact with the language, concepts and implications of these theories through the media and through new technologies, and they are the basis of many contemporary scientific and technological developments. There is surely, therefore, an urgent need to include the concepts of '20th Century physics' within the curriculum.