Difference between inertia and momentum?

[lokifenrir96]

Hi, what exactly is the difference between inertia and momentum?

I understand that momentum is F = mv, and is related to F = ma in that you can convert it into Ft = mv. So the momentum will depend on the mass of the object, velocity, and amount of time you apply a certain force...

I'm not very sure about inertia though. How is it calculated and what is its relation to momentum?

Thank you :)

 

[Crosstalk]

I'll assume you're talking solely about linear motion (i.e. not rotational).*

In my understanding, "inertia" is really the property of mass of resisting motion. It is really a result of interpretations of F = ma -- if you don't apply force, the velocity doesn't change (acceleration = 0). If you do apply force, there is a resistance (velocity change isn't instantaneous).

Inertia is not a value that is calculated -- its quantitative equivalent is mass (through F = ma). Do you understand what I'm saying?

Momentum is very much like energy in that it represents how much much, well, momentum a mass has. The difference is that energy--kinetic energy being proportional to an object's velocity--is more useful when various heights are involved (energy increases linearly with respect to height (assuming a uniform gravitational field)), while momentum is a more direct representation (it is proportional to velocity, not velocity squared) that is more useful in other circumstances (most of my knowledge comes from AP Physics, where we used energy far more extensively (we did use momentum _and_ energy together in some collisions calculations, though)).

The equation F = mv is not correct, although Ft = mv is.

* I have to point out that there is a sort of measurement of inertia when it comes to rotational physics. There is the "moment of inertia," which represents a tendency to resist change in motion (about a certain axis of rotation), and is essentially a direct replacement for mass.

I hope this helps clear things up :)

 

[Philip Wood]

The more inertia a body has the less its acceleration for a given applied force. So mass, as it appears in the equation a = F/m, measures a body's inertia. Note that a body's mass doesn't depend on how fast the body is moving. [In Newtonian physics, mass has another quite different role as well; governing the force a body experiences in a given gravitational field.]

Momentum, mv, is a body's mass multiplied by its velocity. Because velocity is a vector, so is momentum. Everyone knows that the more momentum a body has, the harder it is to bring it to rest. The m factor reduces the acceleration for a given force, as we've already said, so we have to apply the force for longer, and of course the larger the body's initial speed the longer we have to apply a given force to reduce the speed to zero.

 

[lokifenrir96]

Inertia and momentum are related concepts in physics, but they describe different aspects of an object's behavior. Here's the key difference between inertia and momentum:

1. Inertia:
   • Definition: Inertia is the property of an object that describes its resistance to a change in its state of motion. It's often summarized by the statement that "an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an external force."
   • Mathematical Expression: Inertia is a scalar quantity and is usually described by an object's mass (m). The greater the mass of an object, the greater its inertia.
   • Role: Inertia is primarily concerned with the resistance to changes in motion. Objects with more mass have more inertia and are more resistant to changes in their velocity.
2. Momentum:
   • Definition: Momentum is a measure of the quantity of motion an object possesses. It combines an object's mass and its velocity. It is often defined as the product of an object's mass (m) and its velocity (v).
   • Mathematical Expression: The momentum (p) of an object is mathematically expressed as p = m * v, where p is momentum, m is mass, and v is velocity.
   • Role: Momentum describes the motion of an object, including its speed and direction. It quantifies how difficult it is to stop or change the motion of an object. When no external forces act on an object, the total momentum of the system remains constant (conservation of momentum).

In summary, inertia represents an object's resistance to changes in motion and is directly related to its mass, while momentum represents the quantity of motion an object possesses, combining both its mass and velocity. Momentum is a vector quantity, meaning it has both magnitude and direction, while inertia is a scalar quantity related solely to an object's mass.

 

[Philip Wood]

That might be a starting point for understanding momentum, but to understand it properly you need to know about the Law of conservation of momentum, the statement of Newton's second law in terms of momentum and so on.

 

[JDStupi]

The way I tend to think about it is as others said, namely that inertia is essentially the necessary concept for Newtonian Dynamics. It postulates a symmetry between absolute rest and uniform linear motion (1st law) and then introduces the dynamical quantity, mass, as a quantitative measure of a body's resistance to change in its state of motion.

Momentum can be thought of as "quantity-of-motion" to a certain extent, namely being the product of a body's inertial mass and it's velocity.

Now, this brings us to discussions about what motion is, namely momentum may have been originally have been conceived of as the absolute measure of the property of a body: its state of motion. However, the conjunction of Newtons first two laws leads to the result that a body's velocity isn't absolute and is measured wrt some reference frame and so our conception of motion has changed. Now instead of speaking in terms of subject-predicate logic "This body is in a state of motion" we say that to truly say something is in motion we need a two valued predicate namely that "body x is in motion with respect to inertial frame y and p=mv is a quantitative measure of its causal effects on other bodies under certain conditions."

I don't claim that any of this is "The right answer" though, the two concepts are complex and inter-related and I would be silly if I thought I could completely characterize the two.

 

[Drakkith]

Oh so momentum is kind of like inertia in motion while factoring in the velocity?

Both momentum and inertia are a directly related to an objects mass (Except in the case of photons, which have 0 rest mass but still have momentum).

The more mass an object has the more energy it takes to accelerate it to a given speed, or to decelerate it to a given speed. Inertia is used to define how much energy is necessary to do this. Momentum is used when talking about the energy involved in a collision or similar event. I like to think of it as this: Inertia determines how much energy is needed to get an object up to speed, and Momentum is how much energy a moving object posesses.

 

[Philip Wood]

Drakkith's last sentence is, for me, a step too far. Energy and momentum are quite different animals, with different dimensions: [ML²T^-2] and [MLT^-1]. Momentum is a vector and energy a scalar. They feature non-interchangeably in different laws of nature...

 

[Drakkith]

Drakkith's last sentence is, for me, a step too far. Energy and momentum are quite different animals, with different dimensions: [ML²T^-2] and [MLT^-1]. Momentum is a vector and energy a scalar. They feature non-interchangeably in different laws of nature...

Don't read too much into it. I'm not saying that momentum = energy.

 

[Studiot]

I think that when we are talking about 'energy' in this context we should realize we mean solely kinetic energy.

However there are difficulties comparing energy, inertia and momentum.

I like the notion that inertia is that quality of a particle which represents its resistance to change of action by outside influence.

I have been careful to avoid the usual formulae for the following reasons

An electron beam in a cathode ray tube has very low inertia, but high energy. We employ the low inertia characteristic to deflect the path to our desire and the high energy to cause light emission by the receiving phosphor.

At absolute zero temperature particles possesses zero kinetic energy and zero momentum, but they still possesses inertia.

go well

 

[Drakkith]

Exactly Studiot. Momentum is a product of velocity x mass, while inertia is effectively another property of an objects mass. The two are very different in my opinion.

 

[jambaugh]

Inertia is the relationship between rate of motion and momentum.
momentum is the relationship between rate of motion and kinetic energy.

I find it helps to look at other examples to see where things get carried through or distinguished.

An object moving linearly has a mass $m$ (its linear inertia) and a momentum $p=mv$ (the quantity changed and exchanged by forces) and a kinetic energy $T_{lin} = \frac{1}{2} v p = \frac{1}{2} mv^2$.

A rotating object has a moment of inertia $I$ (its rotational inertia) and an angular momentum $L = I\omega$ (the quantity changed and exchanged by torques) and a kinetic energy: $T_{rot} = \frac{1}{2}\omega L = \frac{1}{2}I\omega^2$.

This can be generalized to more complex motions. For more details look up "Lagrangian dynamics" and "Hamiltonian dynamics".

 

[Studiot]

A rotating object has a moment of inertia I (its rotational inertia) and an angular momentum L=Iω (the quantity changed and exchanged by torques) and a kinetic energy: Trot=12ωL=12Iω2.

An object has a moment of inertia whether it is rotating or not.

Inertia is the relationship between rate of motion and momentum.

What exactly does that mean?

******************************

A further application of the resistance to change notion is to observe that a system may possesses inertia.
So, for instance , we observe the propagation of a wave through different media and notice that the wave propagates at different speeds through different media.
We attribute this to the differernt inertias of the different media. In this case there may be more than mass involved. There may also be intramedia forces.

 

[jambaugh]

Note that we can express a rotation in 3 dimensions with a vector $\vec{\theta}$ with magnitude the angle of rotation and direction the axis of rotation. Its time derivative is the vector angular velocity $\vec{\omega}$. An object's moment of inertia maps vector angular velocity to vector angular momentum $\vec{L}$ and in the most general setting is a matrix $\mathbf{I}$ (called the moment of inertia tensor). Indeed only if the object has a very regular shape such as a sphere or cube is the moment of inertia in all directions the same and thus can be treated as a scalar. What this means is that the angular momentum vector will not always be in the same direction as the axis of rotation. This fact is what causes precession of a freely rotating object.

Kinetic energy then is given in terms of the matrix product:
$$T_{rot} = \vec{\omega}\cdot \mathbf{I}\cdot\vec{\omega}$$
We can pick a set of axes of the object so that the moment of inertia is diagonal (the principle axes) and this allows us to write the moments of inertia for each axis simply as a number. (look up the moments of inertia for a rectangular box to see an example).

Something similar happens when we consider elementary particles transforming though their abstract gauge group as they propagate in time. Their inertia is expressed with a mass matrix and when this is diagonalized we have the physical particles. This is why/how for example "hyper-charge" and "weak isospin" combine to give electrical charge. It is in the inertia of the elementary particles which breaks the gauge symmetry by failing to align with the gauge charges. Along this same vein, neutrino flavor oscillations are analogous to the precession process I mentioned for free rotating objects... the mass matrix is not diagonal in the same basis as is the "flavor matrix".

Ok, maybe that's TMI but some may find it interesting.

 

[jambaugh]

An object has a moment of inertia whether it is rotating or not.

But as I implied later, the moment of inertia is different for different axes of rotation. When I say "rotating" object I also include "rotating at zero angular velocity". The phrase is meant to imply an object free to rotate.

What exactly does that [ "inertia is relationship between rate of motion and momentum" ] mean?

Exactly what it states:
momentum = inertia times the time rate of change of motion

this of course begs the definition of momentum which is why I provided it. Although a better definition is in terms of the derivative of kinetic energy (as a function of velocity) with respect to the velocity. That is what generalizes to abstract systems.

It may sound abstract but understanding forces as rates of change of momenta and then forces times motions equaling work i.e. equaling change in kinetic energy. One can then relate:

$dT = F dx = dp/dt \cdot dx = dx/dt \cdot dp$
Work is force times displacement equals velocity times change in momentum.

******************************
A further application of the resistance to change notion is to observe that a system may possesses inertia.
So, for instance , we observe the propagation of a wave through different media and notice that the wave propagates at different speeds through different media.
We attribute this to the differernt inertias of the different media. In this case there may be more than mass involved. There may also be intramedia forces.

"resistance to change" is not specific enough to define inertia. One may for example use this to define friction.

If you want to speak of the inertia of a medium propagating a wave you will need to get into the detailed model of that propagation. The wave is an array of displacements of the medium which then have...
---a time rate of change,
---kinetic energy,
---canonical momenta relating rate of change of the displacement to kinetic energy
---and inertia relating time rate of change to momenta.

Note that waves can propagate through media of different inertias with the same speed if the coupling potential is different in reciprocal fashion. So IMNSHO and with all due respect, I don't think your comment provides any insight into the concept of inertia.

 

[Studiot]

momentum = inertia times the time rate of change of motion

This is not the same statement as the original, and unfortunately it is even more unsatisfactory.

rewriting it as a an equation inertia = momentum/rate of change of motion

leads to division by zero in the case of a particle or system at rest.

 

[Studiot]

called the moment of inertia tensor

You might call it the moment of inertia tensor..

I call it the inertia tensor.

That is because , in general, it contains terms other than moments of inertia.

In another thread here I displayed situations with identical moments of inertia that can only be distinguished by the other terms in the tensor, which are called products of inertia.

 

[jambaugh]

This is not the same statement as the original, and unfortunately it is even more unsatisfactory.

rewriting it as a an equation inertia = momentum/rate of change of motion

leads to division by zero in the case of a particle or system at rest.

I'm about to be sarcastic but please take it in proper friendly humor...
[begin sarcasm]
Yea, it's a shame we don't have some kind of mathematical thingy... let's call it, oh, a limit which has some way of dealing with indeterminate forms. It would be great we could create a whole mathematics using it, since it would let us calculate things we could call it, something like, oh I don't know, calculus.

Yea! If only we had that then we could actually even define what we mean by instantaneous velocity! But it's a shame we don't so that displacement over interval of time is undefined when considered at an instant. Instantaneous velocity, and acceleration, and power, and so on are just badly defined concepts. And don't get me started on integrals!
[end sarcasm]

In all seriousness, I find your objection without merit. We can define velocity as the relationship between displacement and duration... displacement = duration times velocity...
velocity = displacement/duration. We can take the limit as the duration goes to zero and be precise about instantaneous velocity when that relationship is time dependent. Your objections fall flat.

You might call it the moment of inertia tensor...
I call it the inertia tensor.

That is because , in general, it contains terms other than moments of inertia.

You can call it "pixilated" if you like but it is called the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia#Moment_of_inertia_tensor" in the textbooks.

Those other terms are still http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(mathematics)" of the mass distribution. (mass density being a perfectly good example of a general measure or distribution as those terms are used in mathematics.)

The tensor as a whole is the natural generalization, to vector-tensor forms, of the component moment of inertia in that it's the thingy you multiply the angular velocity by to get the other thingy called angular momentum.

If you want to shorten the name for brevity's sake then that is all fine and good. But I don't think anyone is interested in your choice of abbreviation if that is the case.
Anything you say about components is basis dependent. The elegant and correct statements (which thus also provide good intuition when understood) should be expressed independent of bases. That is especially important in this case where we are trying to clarify for the OP the physical meaning of quantities.

 

[jambaugh]

At absolute zero temperature particles possesses zero kinetic energy and zero momentum, but they still possesses inertia.

Just a pedantic correction but zero temperature does not in any way imply zero momentum. Take a chunk of ice at 0deg K and throw it. It doesn't heat up (until it hits something, that is...).

Temperature describes entropic energy and is independent of coherent energy.

That having been said, Yes a stationary object has zero momentum, zero kinetic energy and unchanged inertia. And yet still...

---momentum = inertia times velocity (=0),
---kinetic energy = momentum times velocity (=0).

Another point about your objection to the definition because it "fails" to apply at 0 velocity. To give inertia et al operational meaning i.e. to observe and measure them we must break out of your special case of v=0.

Just because we define something in terms of how we measure it doesn't in any way imply the quantity looses meaning just because someone might choose not to measure it. This is true even in quantum theory. Only the value becomes indeterminate, not the observable.

To measure inertia you have to push on the object in a quantified way and see how fast it ends up going. The push as a force times duration gives us the momentum imparted, and we define the inertia as the the quotient of the --now no-zero-- momentum over the --now non-zero-- velocity. Repeated application of forces shows us this quotient is independent of the amounts of each and we observe the constancy of inertia for such systems. And then there are other systems...

This is the distinction between physics and mathematics. What things mean (in physics) derives from what we actually do in an experiment.

 

[Studiot]

I really don't know how to take these posts so I will just observe two things.

Firstly none of this squabble addresses the original question

What is the difference between inertia and momentum?

So I would just like to emphasize that inertia is a property of a system or individual particle that it always possesses by virtue of the disposition and quantity of mass and sometimes other quantities.

Momentum is a property that a system or individual particle may possesses by virtue of its mass in combination with other quantities (velocity).

It is possible for a system or indivdual particle to possesses inertia but no momentum.

********************************

As regards the rather ungracious comment towards my use of the inertia tensor.
Since I had never come across the use of the term 'moment of inertia tensor' I thought I would check out in my library to see if there is a transatlantic difference of terminology.

Here are my results

University Texts using the term 'Inertia Tensor'

Sayer University of Bristol
Bones University of Bristol
Synge Dublin Institute of Advanced Physics
Griffith University of Toronto
Fowles University of Utah
Cassidy University of Utah
Shigley University of Mitchigan
Uicker University of Wisconsin-Madison

University Texts using the term 'Moment of Inertia Tensor'

None

go well

 

[jambaugh]

Firstly none of this squabble addresses the original question

Agreed!

It is possible for a system or indivdual particle to possesses inertia but no momentum.

I feel you are failing to distinguish "no momentum" as in "undefined" from "momentum with a definite value of zero" (in a particular frame.)
If that was not your intent, it appears to be your intent by your implication... and I feel I have addressed that issue quite clearly in terms of the physics of the definitions I provided.

As regards the rather ungracious comment towards my use of the inertia tensor.
Since I had never come across the use of the term 'moment of inertia tensor' I thought I would check out in my library to see if there is a transatlantic difference of terminology. [...]

Check Goldstein, p194

...The quantity I is therefore identified as a second-rank tensor and is usually called the moment of inertia tensor or briefly as the inertia tensor.​

As I mentioned, it is fine to abbreviate, but to imply somehow that some of its terms are not moments (as you so did) is an error. "inertia tensor" is a brief form of the more specific name... not a qualitative distinction as you implied. Possibly this abbreviation is more completely incorporated in the newer texts. Do be sure to recheck your texts on the pages of definition rather than just the index.

As to the graciousness of my comments, well no, they were not gracious. I didn't feel gracious and am not yet convinced I should beyond common civility which I feel has already been strained. If you would like to address this further please feel free to PM me.

Back to the subject at hand...
Please again explain your objections to my definitions of inertia and momentum especially any I have failed to address in my counter-points.

I think hidden behind our contestations is a fundamental difference in our views of what physics means and thence what physical definitions should be. About this see my earlier comment about the necessity of moving an object to determine its inertia.

 

[Studiot]

but to imply somehow that some of its terms are not moments (as you so did) is an error.

I didn't imply, I stated giving reasoning.

If you could be bothered to check out the other threads in this forum you would find.

1) Others, including respected science advisors and mentors use the term 'inertia tensor'.

2) There are some very good natured discussions about the subject and the elements of this tensor explaining the difference between the elements.

You seem all too ready to condemn me for just looking in the index.
That sir, is jumping to premature conclusions without doing the research and what is more showing considerable disrespect to full professors of respected american universities.

I note that you have still not addressed the original question so in the interests of the OP I withdraw from this thread to avoid further ad hominem dispute.

I am content to let others be the judge.

 

[D H]

Firstly none of this squabble addresses the original question

So, going back to the original question, "what exactly is the difference between inertia and momentum?"

My answer is that inertia is an archaic term. It hearkens back to pre-Newtonian physics (and that begs the question, were explanations of the physical world prior to Newton really "physics"?) I recommend that except for a few leftover qualified uses of the term that people not use the word "inertia". In some cases people mean "mass" when they say "inertia" and in other cases they mean "momentum". If you mean "mass", there is a perfectly valid and much less ambiguous term: "mass". Similarly, just use "momentum" when you mean "momentum". Don't use "inertia".

There are a few qualified uses that do remain in widespread use: Moment of inertia, product of inertia, inertia tensor (or moment of inertia tensor). Note that some avoid using "inertia" even here, calling these things instead moment of mass, product of mass, and the mass moment tensor.

 

[russ_watters]

So, going back to the original question, "what exactly is the difference between inertia and momentum?"

My answer is that inertia is an archaic term. It hearkens back to pre-Newtonian physics (and that begs the question, were explanations of the physical world prior to Newton really "physics"?) I recommend that except for a few leftover qualified uses of the term that people not use the word "inertia". In some cases people mean "mass" when they say "inertia" and in other cases they mean "momentum".

That doesn't make sense to me, DH. How can momentum and inertia ever be interchangeable? Inertia is the tendency of an object with mass to resist an acceleration, represented in equations just by "m". But momentum isn't "m" it is "mv". But if momentum and inertia are interchangeable, this implies that an object with a higher velocity can be said to have a higher inertia and therefore resist acceleration more. a=f/(mv)?

What am I missing?

 

[D H]

What am I missing?

What you are missing is, for example, a TV broadcast of some football game where the announcer talks about some running back having a lot of inertia because he was running so fast. When used in a lay sense, people do use the term "inertia" to sometimes mean mass and sometimes mean momentum.

That lay sense is the only sense that counts because the term "inertia" is rarely used in a technical sense. The exceptions are moment of inertia (and related quantities) and Newton's first law.

Re Galileo's law of inertia, aka Newton's first law. It is important to remember the context of the time. Aristotelean physics was the dominant world view prior to Newton. The Aristotelean point of view was that objects naturally "wanted" to be at rest. Galileo, later reinforced by Newton, turned this point of view upside down. Objects naturally "want" to remain in the same state they were in unless acted upon by an external force.

The law of inertia is a qualitative law. There is no quantitative measure of what constitutes "inertia" in that law. If a net force does not act on an object, the object continues along its merry way, unchanged. If a net force does act on an object, the object does changes behavior, but in some unspecified way. The law of inertia is moot on this. You need to look to the second law to quantitatively determine how a force change the behavior of some object. The second law does not use the term "inertia". It is phrased in terms of either momentum or mass and acceleration, depending on whose reading you are reading. But never inertia.

Inertia is IMHO a term we should stamp out. It is ambiguous (does it mean "mass" or "momentum?) and outdated (do we really need to keep fighting against Aristotelean physics ~300 years after Newton, ~400 after Galileo?). As exemplified by this thread, the term leads to misunderstanding rather than understanding.

 

[Studiot]

Knowing that inertia is sometimes used by

Electrical Engineers to describe electronic system responsiveness
and
Mechanical Engineers to describe mechanical backlash

In an effort to help I pulled out my trusty Chambers dictionary of Science and Technology

Inertia
(Photography)
The exposure in candela-metre-seconds which is indicated for zero density when the linear portion of the gamma curve for an emulsion is extended.

(Physics)
The property of a body, proportional to its mass but independent of gravity, which opposes the change in the sate of motion of the body.

This agrees with my earlier cautious (wide and wooly?) statements.

I think the OP meant mechanical or physics inertia and momentum and as such the difference is

Inertia is a property of (determined by) the body alone, whereas momentum is a combined property of (determined by) both the body and its motion.

go well

 

[Philip Wood]

Studiot. Your last statement seems to imply that p = mv is an unsatisfactory equation.

I say 'seems to imply', because I expect I've missed something.

 

[Studiot]

Hello philip

As far as I know there is nothing unsatisfactory about p=mv.

Perhaps I put it badly?

Another way might be

A body possesses (mechanical) inertia whether it is in motion or not.

A body only posseses momentum if it is in motion.

A body cannot dispense with its inertia or perhaps increase or decrease it (unless it can change its mass)

A body can change its momentum without changing its mass.

How's this

Anyone is welcome to state these ideas better.

 

[Philip Wood]

Studiot. I was referring back to this earlier post. Sorry not to make this clear.

"momentum = inertia times the time rate of change of motion"
This is not the same statement as the original, and unfortunately it is even more unsatisfactory.

rewriting it as a an equation inertia = momentum/rate of change of motion

leads to division by zero in the case of a particle or system at rest.

What I'd say is that a logically sound way of measuring inertial mass is by 'explosive' separation of the mass, m, to be measured, and a standard mass, m0, in which case m = m₀ v₀/v, in which v and v₀ are the speeds of m and m₀ after the separation.

Her we rely on conservation of momentum, so we do, really, use p = mv. I don't really see the hazard of dividing by zero as a serious issue, any more than in the case of resistance; we still speak of a resistor as having resistance when there's no current through it,

 

[Studiot]

Sorry I don't follow.

p=mv is a very precise statement, with which I have no problem.
So momentum is well defined and I have a formula I can reliably use to obtain momentum.

I have never said that inertia = mass, though I did just quote a science dictionary which has it proportional to mass.

Inertia is a very slippery customer, as DH has indicated.
I have tried to expand on that idea a bit since some have extended it beyond just proportional to mass.
Therefore I have, as others before me, avoided a formulaic definition in favour of a more general one.
I have presented what I hope is the same idea in several different ways in this thread.

The statement you refer to was simply taking Jambaugh's formula and inverting it to obtain a formulaic definition in an attempt to show how this can lead to difficulties.
It is a pity this part of the discussion lead to acrimony.

 

[Philip Wood]

Absolutely no intention to cause acrimony.

 

[Studiot]

Not you Philip

 

[russ_watters]

What you are missing is, for example, a TV broadcast of some football game where the announcer talks about some running back having a lot of inertia because he was running so fast. When used in a lay sense, people do use the term "inertia" to sometimes mean mass and sometimes mean momentum.

Ok, I see - it isn't that the two terms are interchangeable, it is that they are often incorrectly used interchangeably.

That lay sense is the only sense that counts because the term "inertia" is rarely used in a technical sense.

I am against allowing laypeople to corrupt the definition of a word even if scientists no longer use that word. Incorrect usage should be corrected, not seen as a reason to discard the word.

Re Galileo's law of inertia, aka Newton's first law. It is important to remember the context of the time. Aristotelean physics was the dominant world view prior to Newton. The Aristotelean point of view was that objects naturally "wanted" to be at rest. Galileo, later reinforced by Newton, turned this point of view upside down. Objects naturally "want" to remain in the same state they were in unless acted upon by an external force.

Understood, but since everyone has to start somewhere with the learning of physics, don't most people have to learn what you just said? Doesn't that require exposure to the word "inertia"?

The law of inertia is a qualitative law. There is no quantitative measure of what constitutes "inertia" in that law. If a net force does not act on an object, the object continues along its merry way, unchanged. If a net force does act on an object, the object does changes behavior, but in some unspecified way. The law of inertia is moot on this. You need to look to the second law to quantitatively determine how a force change the behavior of some object. The second law does not use the term "inertia". It is phrased in terms of either momentum or mass and acceleration, depending on whose reading you are reading. But never inertia.

It sounds like you are saying mass and inertia are not proportional? That inertia is qualitative only? That it is improper to say an object with more mass than another has more inertia? Is this, from the wiki on "inertia" incorrect?

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass.

And from a student site?:

Mass as a Measure of the Amount of Inertia
All objects resist changes in their state of motion. All objects have this tendency - they have inertia. But do some objects have more of a tendency to resist changes than others? Absolutely yes! The tendency of an object to resist changes in its state of motion varies with mass. Mass is that quantity that is solely dependent upon the inertia of an object. The more inertia that an object has, the more mass that it has. A more massive object has a greater tendency to resist changes in its state of motion.

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/U2L1b.cfm

It is ambiguous (does it mean "mass" or "momentum?)

Based on the above it seems pretty clear to me that it doesn't mean momentum and is proportional to (is an effect of) mass.

Inertia is IMHO a term we should stamp out...
and outdated (do we really need to keep fighting against Aristotelean physics ~300 years after Newton, ~400 after Galileo?).

No fighting required - I get that as a subject advances, the language evolves, but I think students need to learn that history and understand the evolution of the terms.

 

[RedX]

Inertia is mass. Mass is scalar, the same no matter how fast observer.
Momentum is vector. Momentum depends on velocity of observer.

Something similar happens when we consider elementary particles transforming though their abstract gauge group as they propagate in time. Their inertia is expressed with a mass matrix and when this is diagonalized we have the physical particles. This is why/how for example "hyper-charge" and "weak isospin" combine to give electrical charge. It is in the inertia of the elementary particles which breaks the gauge symmetry by failing to align with the gauge charges. Along this same vein, neutrino flavor oscillations are analogous to the precession process I mentioned for free rotating objects... the mass matrix is not diagonal in the same basis as is the "flavor matrix".

Ok, maybe that's TMI but some may find it interesting.

I find that interesting, but I'm not sure I follow. How do particles transform through their gauge group as they propagate in time? Don't mass matrices transform under say U(n), while gauge groups tend to be of the SU(n) and U(1) type?

Don't hypercharge and weak isospin combine because choosing a vacuum state preserves the symmetry of transformations generated by that particular combination of generators? So for example although W¹ and W² don't have a definite charge, $W^{\pm}=W^1 \pm i W^2$ do have definite charge, and you're saying this is only because $W^{\pm}$ have definite mass/are the mass eigenstates? I'm troubled by that imaginary combination, but don't W¹ and W² have the same mass anyway, so that any linear combo would also have the same mass?

Also, what gauge group corresponds to neutrino oscillations, if it's inertia that corresponds to failing to align to gauge charges?

 

[jambaugh]

I find that interesting, but I'm not sure I follow. How do particles transform through their gauge group as they propagate in time?

That is what the gauge potential (affine connection) determines.
$D_\mu = \partial_\mu + iW_\mu$

Don't hypercharge and weak isospin combine because choosing a vacuum state preserves the symmetry of transformations generated by that particular combination of generators?

Yes, but the reason that this choice of vacuum doesn't preserve ALL the gauge groups is the breaking of the symmetry (for the ground state=vacuum) via e.g. the Higgs mechanism which determines the inertia of the physical particles.

In the discussion here people keep speaking of "no momentum for stationary particles" which is not correct in the relativistic setting where momentum -> momentum-energy.

Here's a more concrete analogue. Consider light moving through a transparent material. The coupling of light to the matterial gives the photons an effective mass and they travel at less than c. This effective mass can be seen as coming from the inertia of the charge carriers of the material (it's inertia) to the e-m field of the light.

Now break the symmetry (in this case rotation sym), consider a birefringent crystal. Since the crystal couples differently to different photon polarizations you get different effective masses for the two transverse polarizations relative to the crystal alignment. The vertical photons and horizontal photons, while in this crystal behave like distinct types of particles with different masses.

This is an imperfect analogue since one is breaking a non-gauge symmetry but I think it shows some of the features.

So for example although W¹ and W² don't have a definite charge, $W^{\pm}=W^1 \pm i W^2$ do have definite charge, and you're saying this is only because $W^{\pm}$ have definite mass/are the mass eigenstates? I'm troubled by that imaginary combination, but don't W¹ and W² have the same mass anyway, so that any linear combo would also have the same mass?

You have the $W^1$, $W^2$ and $W^3$ modes of the SU(2) gauge field, or in a different basis $W^{\pm},W^0$. Each modulo iso-rotations.

In the absence of symmetry breaking we'd have a continuum of superpositions of weak bosons, each massless, as well as massless hyper-photons. Apply the Higgs field, which creates a non-trivial weak-isospin-hypercharge vacuum. As with the analogue of the birefringent crystal, the masses of the gauge bosons are no-longer exactly zero but one has a mass matrix. In its eigen-spaces we have $W^{\pm}$ (realtive to a particular isospin direction I_z) and we have the photon and the weak boson $Z_0$ as superpositions of the hyper-photon and $W^0$ boson fields which have respective 0 and non-zero "eigen-masses".

This also causes the leptons to split into heavier electrons/muons/tauons, vs lighter neutrinos.

Also, what gauge group corresponds to neutrino oscillations, if it's inertia that corresponds to failing to align to gauge charges?

This is a bit more strained but one supposes a separate SU(3) flavor mixing "symmetry" manifesting at a much higher energy. It breaks in a similar fashion as above giving e.g. electrons, muons, and tauons different masses. There is a distinction since we do not see manifest gauge bosons for the flavor group (unless this broken SU(3) is restored inside the nucleon somehow and it is the same as the color gauge...wild speculation there!)

But ultimately for neutrinos to oscillate they must a.) have masses and b.) the eigen-masses must be superpositions of the flavors identified with the quarks and non-neutrino leptons. In other words the mass matrix for one half of the weak doublets must be different slightly than for the other half of the weak doublets. The flavor spectrum which gives eigen-masses for electrons, muons, and tauons must not quite give eigen-masses for the corresonding neutrinos. So as these propagate they must oscillate through the flavors. This oscillation is at the "beat frequency" for their distinct phase frequencies given momentum is conserved but masses are distinct.