Inertia Lab Make-up

Read the following information on Inertia. Once you have read the information, follow the link at the bottom to answer the inertia questions.


Newton’s Law of Inertia
In 1686, Sir Isaac Newton published his book Principia. In it, he described three laws that relate forces to the motion of objects. The three laws are commonly known as Newton’s laws of motion. Newton’s first law of motion is called the law of inertia and is as follows:
“An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by a force”

Simply put, things tend to keep on doing what they’re already doing. Dishes on a table top, for example, are in a state of rest. They tend to remain at rest, as is evidenced if you snap a table cloth from beneath them. If an object is in a state of rest, it tends to remain at rest. Only a force will change that state. Now consider an object in motion. If you slide a hockey puck along the surface of a city street, the puck quite soon comes to rest. If you slide it along ice, it slides for a longer distance. This occurs because the friction force is very small on the ice. If you slide it along an air table where friction is practically absent, it slides with no apparent loss in speed. We see that in the absence of forces, a moving object tends to move in a straight line indefinitely. Toss an object from a space station located in the vacuum of outer space, and the object will move forever. It will move by virtue of its own inertia.

Mass – A measure of Inertia
Kick an empty tin can and it moves. Kick a can filled with sand, and it doesn’t move as much. Kick a tin can filled with solid lead, and you’ll hurt your foot. The lead-filled can has more inertia than the sand-filled can, which in turn has more inertia than the empty can. The can with the most matter has the greatest inertia. The amount of inertia an object has depends on its mass – that is, on the amount of material present in the object. The more mass an object has, the more force it takes to change its state of motion. Mass is a measure of the inertia of an object.

Mass is Not Volume
Many people confuse mass with volume. They think that if an object has a large mass, it must have a large volume. But volume is a measure of space and is measured in units such as cubic centimeters, cubic meters, or liters. Mass is measured in kilograms. (A liter of milk, juice, or soda – anything that is mainly water- has a mass of about one kilogram.) How many kilograms of matter are in a object, and how much space is taken up by that object, are two different things. Which has the greater mass – a feather pillow or a common automobile battery? Clearly the more difficult to set in motion is the battery. This is evidence of the battery’s greater inertia and hence greater mass. The pillow may be bigger – that is, it may have a larger volume – but it has less mass. Mass is different from volume.

Mass is Not Weight
Mass is most often confused with weight. We say something has a lot of matter if it is heavy. That’s because we are used to measuring the quantity of matter in an object by its gravitational attraction to the earth. But mass is more fundamental than weight; mass is a measure of the actual material in a body. It depends only on the number and kind of atoms that compose it. Weight is a measure of the gravitational force that acts on the material, and depends on where the object is located. The amount of material in a particular stone is the same whether the stone is located on the earth, on the moon, or in outer space. Hence, its mass is the same in any of these locations. This could be shown by shaking the stone back and forth. The same force would be required to shake the stone with the same rhythm whether the stone was on earth, on the moon, or in a force-free region of outer space. That’s because the inertia of the stone is solely a property of the stone and not its location.
But the weight of the stone would be very different o the earth and on the moon, and still different in outer space if the stone were away from strong sources of gravitation. On the surface of the moon the stone would have only one-sixth its weight on earth. This is because the force of gravitation is only on-sixth as strong on the moon as compared to on the earth. If the stone were in a gravity-free region of space, its weight would be zero. Its mass, on the other hand, would not be zero. Mass is different from weight.
We can define mass and weight as follows:

Mass: The quantity of matter in a body. More specifically, it is a measure of the inertia or “laziness” that a body exhibits in response to any effort made to start it, stop it, or change in any way its state of motion.

Weight: The force due to gravity upon a body.

Mass and weight are not the same thing, but they are proportional to each other. Objects with great masses have great weights. Objects with small masses have small weights. In the same location, twice as much mass weighs twice as much. Mass and weight are proportional to each other but not equal to each other. Mass has to do with the amount of matter in the object.
Weight has to do with how strongly that matter is attracted by the earth’s gravity.


Click on the following link to answer the inertia questions
Inertia Questions

Science

• Acceleration
• Exploring Distance vs. Time Graphs
• Emission Line Spectrums
• Messier Objects
• Online Telescope
• Inertia Lab Make-up
• Friction Lab Make-up
• Force Lab Make-up
• Energy Lab Make-up
• Momentum Lab Make-up

Times Table Practice

Quick Flash II: Use the computerized flashcards in QuickFlash II to practice the multiplication facts. Each time you get an answer correct, a green square is placed on the card. (Red if you get it wrong.)

Meteor Multiplication: Large meteors with multiplication problems in them move from all around the screen toward a large star station in the center of the screen. Answers to the problems are placed in the center of the star station, the station gun is aimed at the approaching meteor, and the gun is fired to disintegrate the meteor. If a meteor reaches the star station before disintegrated with the correct answer, the meteor hits the station and shatters. Answers are placed in the star station and gun moved and fired by designated keyboard keys. Hits and misses are recorded in the galaxy at the bottom of the screen.

Multiplication Practice: Practice your multiplication facts and feed the world!

Grand Prix Multiplication: A multi-player racing game for multiplication. Students race against each other to capture the Multiplication Cup! How quickly the student correctly answers the multiplication problem determines how quickly the race car will go. The student with the fastest rate of correct answers will win the race. Hits and misses are recorded and displayed at the end of the game, along with the student’s rate. 1-4 players can play at once.

Tug Team Tractor Multiplication: a multi-player tug game for multiplication. How quickly the student correctly answers the multiplication problem determines how much the tractor will tug. The team with the fastest rate of correct answers will win the tug of war. Hits and misses are recorded and displayed at the end of the game, along with the student’s rate. 1-8 players can play at once.

Drag Race Division: A multi-player racing game that allows students from anywhere in the world to race one another while practicing their division facts! How quickly the student correctly answers the multiplication problem determines how quickly the race car will go. The student with the fastest rate of correct answers will win the race. Hits and misses are recorded and displayed at the end of the game, along with the student’s rate. 1-4 players can play at once.