• Question: what is inertia?

    Asked by Sheldon Cooper to Anne, Beth, COLFlight, Jon, Tom on 13 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Tom Morse

      Tom Morse answered on 13 Oct 2015:

      Hi Sheldon,

      Intertia is the tendancy for an object to keep doing whatever it is doing (i.e. staying still, moving, spinning). The fact that objects have intertia means you need to apply a force to make it do something else (speed up, slow down).

      The higher the object’s intertia, the more force is required to produce a given change.

      Hope that makes sense?

      Good luck

    • Photo: Beth Healey

      Beth Healey answered on 13 Oct 2015:

      This is probably a better explanation than I can manage (although Tom has done a great job too!!)

      http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-1/Inertia-and-Mass

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