The research presented in this thesis was motivated by the need to improve introductory physics courses. Introductory physics courses are generally the first courses in which students learn to create models to solve complex problems. However, many students taking introductory physics courses fail to acquire a command of the concepts, methods and tools presented in these courses. The reforms proposed by this thesis focus on altering the content of introductory courses rather than content delivery methods as most reforms do.
Using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists have recently discovered a gigantic, mysterious structure in our galaxy. This feature looks like a pair of bubbles extending above and below our galaxy's center. Each lobe is 25,000 light-years tall and the whole structure may be only a few million years old.
A program called SCSPG (Semi-Circle Segmented Path Generator) is presented in this report. How it works is described and an example of it is illustrated using a case of work of friction along a curved path. As a benchmark for the program, work of friction along straight path is calculated and then compared to theoretical prediction.
Stereoscopic visualization is seldom used in Astrophysical publications and presentations compared to other scientific fields, e.g., Biochemistry, where it has been recognized as a valuable tool for decades.
The OPERA neutrino experiment at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory has measured the velocity of neutrinos from the CERN CNGS beam over a baseline of about 730 km with much higher accuracy than previous studies conducted with accelerator neutrinos. The measurement is based on high-statistics data taken by OPERA in the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. Dedicated upgrades of the CNGS timing system and of the OPERA detector, as well as a high precision geodesy campaign for the measurement of the neutrino baseline, allowed reaching comparable systematic and statistical accuracies. An early arrival time of CNGS muon neutrinos with respect to the one computed assuming the speed of light in vacuum of (60.7 \pm 6.9 (stat.) \pm 7.4 (sys.)) ns was measured. This anomaly corresponds to a relative difference of the muon neutrino velocity with respect to the speed of light (v-c)/c = (2.48 \pm 0.28 (stat.) \pm 0.30 (sys.)) \times 10-5.