jds10011
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I don't disagree with these statements. I am not disputing that inertia is just mass (though others are, here and otherwise), nor that it is the tendency to maintain straight-line motion. I am saying that I often hear it mis-applied or mis-represented in other scenarios (see my very first post).Dale said:It seems like you have all of the pieces, but are just having trouble putting them together. Based in your own comments any time that you see the word "inertia" or the phrase "tendency to continue ..." you can simply substitute the word "mass". So:Clearly the answer as revised is "no". Your mass has clearly not increased. So by your own reasoning this also implies that your "inertia" has not increased nor has your "tendency to maintain..." increased.
(1) Perhaps you could help me to understand what differentiates the two cases (the increased mass as I ride the gravitron and the increased speed in the same ride) such that it makes intuitive sense that despite smashing into the wall harder in both cases, only one is a change in my tendency to maintain straight-line motion. I understand this concept from a definitional standpoint (tendency to maintain straight line motion is inertia, inertia is just mass, mass hasn't changed, ergo my tendency to maintain straight-line motion hasn't changed), but not really from a standpoint of understanding the physics behind this assertion.
(2) I have asked this question a number of times without really getting an answer: When the ride speed is increased, and I smash into the wall harder, is there no property of myself that helps to explain this behavior? Must I just say that I am smashing into the wall harder because of the actions of the wall? Most everyone says yes, but this seems a bit unsatisfactory. If it is yes, then why?
(3) The followup to this question was the similar example of the ball being revolved on the string. Suppose the string is tied to a fixed rod (no one is there). The ball is set in motion by a person, but they don't interact further with the setup. The ball will pull harder on the string if a higher mass is used OR if a higher initial speed is used. Must we explain the force that the ball exerts on the string only by N3, and positing the rod pulling as the action and the ball pulling as the reaction? It seems like it should be equally valid from the perspective of the ball as the action and the rod as the reaction, but how then to explain why the ball is pulling? Additionally, why are we willing to explain that it pulls harder based on an innate property of the ball only in the case of the increased mass? Is there not a property of the ball responsible for this in both cases? I had suggested that perhaps it is illuminating to think of revolving a snowball, which would fly apart at high speeds, rather than revolving -- in other words, it would be incapable of pulling on the string appropriately.