A classic mis/pre-conception that everyone must deal with eventually
is Aristotelean thinking.
The 'Natural' state of every object it to be at rest and to remain at
rest until some outside agent makes it move.
Who can deny the reality of this!!!! It JUST makes SENSE ! ! ! ! !
Every successful intro physics student will learn to recite Newtons First Law -
BUT VERY FEW STUDENTS WILL INTERNALIZE IT ! ! !
The FCI is an excellent measure of how just poorly this basic concept
is internalized.
There is NO denying these results.
It easy for those of us who teach - to think we're doing a great job
- but how many of us are willing to actually measure the results -
for fear of seeing how difficult it really IS to create a fundamental
paradigm shift such as this.