The inertia of rest is the tendency of a body to resist a change in state of motion from rest by an external force. This tendency of objects can be derived from Newton’s first law, which states that an object in rest continues to be in rest unless acted upon by an external force. In this article, we focus on 10 examples of inertia of motion.
What is the inertia of rest?
The inertia of rest is the property of a body to resist change in motion when the object is in rest. When a body is at rest, it has a certain inertia of rest according to its mass, and it is difficult to make it move immediately. The object moves only after a certain force is applied. For example, When we are on a roller coaster and we start from a position of rest and come down quickly, we tend to move backward rather than forward. This is due to the inertia of motion when we try to maintain our position of rest.
Examples of inertia of rest
- Falling dust particles while dusting a cloth
- Falling down backward when a vehicle starts immediately
- The detachment of leaves/fruits due to shaking
- The trick of pulling a tablecloth without disturbing the dishes on the table
- A balloon in a car
- Peeling a sticky tape
- Shaking of a tomato ketchup bottle
- Earthquake
- mechanical bull riding machine
- A coin kept on cardboard falling into the glass
Falling down of dust particles while dusting a cloth: When we dust a cloth or a carpet, we shake it off vigorously. What we are doing is setting the carpet into motion. But, the dust particles, due to inertia of motion, don’t move along with the carpet, they try to retain their original position. Hence, they get separated from the carpet or cloth.
Falling down backward when a vehicle starts immediately: When a vehicle starts into motion immediately from a state of rest, the passengers tend to lean backward. This is due to the inertia of rest, which causes the passengers to tend to retain their position and try to lean backward.
A balloon in a car: When we stick out a balloon from our cars that is in motion, we can see that the balloon moves backward. The balloon tries to be at rest due to the inertia of rest.
A detachment of leaves/fruits due to shaking: To detach fruits from a tree we shake the whole tree vigorously. This causes the tree to move, but the fruits try to maintain their state of rest due to inertia and hence get detached from the tree.
The trick of pulling a tablecloth without disturbing the dishes on the table: You might have seen this trick as a child. When we pull the tablecloth very fast, then the dishes on the tablecloth won’t be pulled along. They remain in their initial position on the table due to the inertia of rest.
Peeling a sticky tape: When we pull off the sticky tape immediately, nothing much happens. But, if we pull slowly, the part of the object to which it was stuck may come off. When we remove it immediately then due to the inertia of rest, the object remains at its state of rest and does not move much.
Shaking of a tomato ketchup bottle: It is very difficult to remove ketchup stuck in a bottle, especially in winter seasons. We tend to swing the bottle in all directions to get the ketchup out. The inertia of rest causes the ketchup to remain in its position, but since the bottle is moving, it is displaced in the event.
Earthquake: In the case of an earthquake, the ground beneath shakes immediately and causes widespread destruction. The ground shakes, but the buildings on top do not move along with the ground due to the inertia of rest and, as a result, get destroyed.
Mechanical bull riding machine: This is a good example of the inertia of rest to understand. You must have seen how the mechanical bull makes sharp and quick moves to outsmart the rider. The rider remains at rest while the bull moves immediately and makes the rider fall down.
Coin kept on cardboard falling into the glass: You might have observed this example of inertia of rest as a kid. A coin is placed on top of the cardboard, which is placed over a glass. The cardboard is pulled quickly to ensure that the coin falls into the glass due to the inertia of rest.
All examples of inertia of rest are experienced when a body at rest is acted upon by external force to change its state of motion. For example, with sticky tape, the coin on cardboard, etc. the speed of motion is very important to observe the inertia of rest.
See Also
- 15 Examples of inertia of motion
- Newton’s second law of motion examples
- Examples of newtons first law of motion
- 15 Examples of newtons third law of motion
- Examples of periodic motion
- Examples of non-periodic motion
- Non-uniform motion examples
- Examples of uniform motion
- Examples of projectile motion
- Maximum height of a projectile formula
