“Inertia” is a concept that many people know very little about. Unfortunately, many drivers know very little about it, too. Unfortunately, this is a problem, because inertia is one of the leading causes of traffic mishaps. If you’re in a car accident, you’ve probably heard the term “inertia” used before. Here’s what you need to know about this fascinating phenomenon.
Inertia refers to the tendency of an object to continue moving with no external force acting on it to prevent it from moving. Due to absolute zero gravity, mass is always moving, although it is sometimes slowed by the resistance of air or friction. Because of absolute zero gravity, mass acts according to a law of conservation of energy. That law states that the mass will continue to move until some external force acts to slow or stop it. If you are sitting in your car, and the mass in your backseat is being accelerated, the momentum of that mass is being lost, and it will continue to be moved forward by the combined force of your body and the accelerating vehicle. However, if you’re wearing a seatbelt, the passenger behind you is not wearing a seatbelt, and the momentum of that vehicle is acting against you, slowing you down.
The concept of inertia is relatively simple. The concept itself is more complex. A variety of different systems may be involved, depending on the nature of the objects involved. There are times when an object is moving at a constant speed, and there are times when an object is going rapidly relative to its own momentum.
Let’s look at some examples using two types of kinetic energy: motion that are not constant, and motion that are constant but are subject to acceleration. The first law, namely the First Law of Thermodynamics, states that energy does not add up over time. It also says that an object cannot gain or lose momentum. When the Second Law of Thermodynamics is applied, it states that any change in motion will result in an increase or decrease in both kinetic and potential energy, depending on the direction of the change.
Kinetic energy is the energy required to move an object. Potential energy is the energy needed to keep an object moving. Inertia, according to First Law of Thermodynamics, is the total amount of energy lost due to friction, and then the total amount of energy gained because of friction. Inertia is most easily seen with objects that are not moving. For example, the human body and the average automobile weigh less than their respective maximums.
There is a great misconception about inertia. The misconception is that if you throw a football at an object, it will fly through the air like a rocket. This is because the law of inertia tells us that an object does not move until it is attracted to some force. Thus, it would follow that the more you attract an object, the further it will move. The problem with this line of thinking is that it leads to the conclusion that if there are many objects, each with its own weight, speed, momentum, etc., then by the end of the motion of all objects would have moved together.
An alternative view of Inertia is that it is nothing more than a change in a certain degree of velocity, or the relative speed of rotation about an axis. By taking a baseball and knocking it against a wall, we can see just how much Inertia it has. The ball rolls down the wall at a very slow pace, while the wall itself moves relative to the motion of the ball at a high rate of speed. If the balls were simply spinning randomly on the horizontal plane, there would be no apparent Inertia at all. But by comparing the two motions, it is clear that the slower moving ball loses its Inertia due to the gravitational pull of the earth.
Another example of Inertia is the way a skater loses Inertia when he slides. This happens because as he slides, he is transferring a lot of mass from his feet to his board. The harder he makes the turn, the more mass is transferred from the skater’s feet to his board. Thus, while skaters do lose some Inertia when they slide, they gain Inertia when they skate, since their bodies continue to rotate about the same axis throughout the move. Though the skater’s Inertia decreases, it is not enough to stop him from scoring a goal.