Inertia is not a force, it describes motion. Remember, the Law of Laziness? An object in motion will stay in motion, or an object at rest will stay at rest unless it is hit by something? What does that look like on Earth? The more mass an object has the more inertia it has...(It's more lazy?) That's why it's harder to push a full wheelbarrow than an empty one. The heavy wheelbarrow would rather sit, than be pushed. This wheelbarrow is resisting moving....a lot.... Another example of a more massive object colliding with a less massive object...this one is kind of obvious.... How about when a massive object gets stopped immediately? A sudden change in motion... Inertia and passengers in a car that stops suddenly. (No dummies were damaged in this test.) Think about this for a minute: What type of object, a heavy one or lighter one, needs more force to slow down? This train engineer was putting on his brakes... Lesson...if you miss your exit, don't stop in the middle of the freeway...ever... It was Galileo that reasoned that moving objects eventually stop due to friction. Before Galileo people thought that objects would eventually come to rest and an object at rest would stay at rest. Galileo was a great scientific thinker and tried to convince people around him otherwise about inertia, but, it was 2000 years later that Newton changed the way people think. (Not only are objects resistant to change, people's way of thinking are resistant to change!) Anyway! Galileo observed that if friction were removed an object would continue moving forever until something stopped it. Newton worked on this principle and discovered that an object sliding stops because of a force acting on it. The man in motion on the icy road does not come to a rest position because of the absence of a force; rather it is the presence of a force - that force being the force of friction - that brings the man to a rest position. A force is not required to keep a moving man in motion. In actuality, it is a force that brings the man to rest. So if you have mass and prefer sitting on the couch every night playing video games, what kind of force will get you off that couch? Dessert? $200? You got mass, you got inertia! Disclaimer: Absolutely NO ONE was hurt in the writing of this blog.
24 Comments
|
Mrs. TaylorI love science! Everything about the world is interesting and never boring. I love to study plants, animals, insects, and people. My favorite subjects are my students who are the most unique organisms on the planet! Categories |