Explanation of inertia in physics

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Every driver who has already had a rear-end collision knows the effects of the inertia of the crowd from their own experience. The explanation for this is provided by the scientist Isaac Newton.

The explanation of inertia based on a vehicle
The explanation of inertia based on a vehicle

The physical explanation of inertia

  • A body remains at rest or in uniform, straight-line motion as long as the resultant of all forces acting on it is zero. That means that the energyonce given to a body, does not fizzle out. So it remains until it is compensated by a force acting in the opposite direction.
  • The principle of inertia is one of the cornerstones of the classic mechanics.
  • According to Newton, the force is defined as the product of mass and acceleration. The greater the mass, the greater the force required to accelerate it.
  • From a physical point of view, braking is nothing more than acceleration, only in a negative sense.

The practical implications of the principle of inertia

  • The greater the mass of the moving body, the greater the force that is required to accelerate it in any way. As a result, trucks have more powerful engines and brakes than passenger cars.
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  • The inertia of the mass makes it necessary, for example, to put astronauts on a leash in space. Look at the scenario. An astronaut with the wrong movement impulse would, in the absence of air resistance and gravitational pull, i.e. without the action of force, continue to follow the movement vector that has once been adopted.
  • If you follow this thought further, you will see how the tablecloth trick works. The faster you pull the tablecloth away from under the set table, the more force the friction between the place setting and the tablecloth would have to transfer. As soon as this force becomes greater than the transmitted energy, the place setting stops.
  • Aristotle already thought about an explanation of the inertia of the masses. Above all, however, the equivalence principle, Mach's principle and the impetus principle should be mentioned.
  • Ultimately, however, the Newton-based explanation of the inertia of mass prevailed.

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