“Okay, class. Time to review before the test. Hmmm. Hey, I need everyone’s attention, and that includes you, Bill. Remember that we’ve been discussing forces and what Galileo and Newton told us about acceleration. Now, all of us have been in an accelerating car, and we all know the feeling. The car goes faster, and we seem to get pushed back into our seat. If we look at the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror, we see that they also seem to go backward as the car accelerates forward. So, what did we say was going on? Bill? Bill? Billllllll!”
“I dunno.”
“Let me remind you. Inertia, pure and simple. A body at rest tends to remain at rest, and a body in motion tends to remain in motion. That’s why the recently launched Tesla sports car will probably run through the Solar System until it crashes into something. Anyway, as you sat in your seat and the dice hung from the mirror before the car’s acceleration, you and the dice had a tendency to remain in place. And then, during the acceleration, you and the dice resisted the apparent force to move you. Now let’s make the car go around a curve. Remember that we said the acceleration is toward a point in the center of an imagined circle that would complete the curve in 360 degrees. So, the acceleration is toward the inside of the curve, but what do you feel? Bill? Bill? Billllllll!”
“I think I feel stupid.”
“Not to worry, Bill. Think. You’re going around a curve in your car. What does your body do? What would the dice do?”
“I would lean toward the outside of the curve. Right?”
“See, you do know. Now let’s compare. In a straight-line acceleration, you feel you are going in the direction opposite of the acceleration. Going backward. You can see you are going forward, but your body and the dice appear to go backward. And you can feel yourself ‘being pushed’ backward, even though you can reason that you are traveling forward at an ever-increasing velocity. So, your body’s response to acceleration is governed by its inertia, its resistance to being moved, a resistance you interpret as being pushed in a direction opposite the acceleration. Guess what? The same principle applies to going around a curve. You ‘feel’ a movement to the outside of the curve because acceleration is to the inside—toward the center of that imagined circle. There’s really no force pushing you to the outside of the curve. It’s a matter of your body’s inertia. Got it?”
“I think so. So, when I think I’m being moved by my peers to act in ways that are against my or someone else’s best interest, there’s really no force other than my own inertia that prevents me from moving into the ‘inner circle’ of peer pressure, political pressure, social pressure, or even religious pressure. Apparently, I have my own inertia to thank if I resist any acceleration toward inimical behavior by forces I perceive to be outside myself. Let me think…Oh! So, when I am encouraged to go with the flow, race toward some purpose by the social vehicle that carries me, I can interpret my own resistance as a preservation of the steady motion of my life because, just as in physics, I know that in free fall or in a sports car launched into space, I will tend to do what I am doing. But sometimes, I will perceive a force that really isn’t a true force because I misinterpret my resistance to do something as an external force acting on me when, in fact, I just have a natural tendency to be who I am, and that natural tendency is my character inertia.”
“Bill, what’s gotten into you? I’m astounded.”
“Sorry, I thought I was in psychology class or sompthin. Was there a question?”
“I dunno.”
“Let me remind you. Inertia, pure and simple. A body at rest tends to remain at rest, and a body in motion tends to remain in motion. That’s why the recently launched Tesla sports car will probably run through the Solar System until it crashes into something. Anyway, as you sat in your seat and the dice hung from the mirror before the car’s acceleration, you and the dice had a tendency to remain in place. And then, during the acceleration, you and the dice resisted the apparent force to move you. Now let’s make the car go around a curve. Remember that we said the acceleration is toward a point in the center of an imagined circle that would complete the curve in 360 degrees. So, the acceleration is toward the inside of the curve, but what do you feel? Bill? Bill? Billllllll!”
“I think I feel stupid.”
“Not to worry, Bill. Think. You’re going around a curve in your car. What does your body do? What would the dice do?”
“I would lean toward the outside of the curve. Right?”
“See, you do know. Now let’s compare. In a straight-line acceleration, you feel you are going in the direction opposite of the acceleration. Going backward. You can see you are going forward, but your body and the dice appear to go backward. And you can feel yourself ‘being pushed’ backward, even though you can reason that you are traveling forward at an ever-increasing velocity. So, your body’s response to acceleration is governed by its inertia, its resistance to being moved, a resistance you interpret as being pushed in a direction opposite the acceleration. Guess what? The same principle applies to going around a curve. You ‘feel’ a movement to the outside of the curve because acceleration is to the inside—toward the center of that imagined circle. There’s really no force pushing you to the outside of the curve. It’s a matter of your body’s inertia. Got it?”
“I think so. So, when I think I’m being moved by my peers to act in ways that are against my or someone else’s best interest, there’s really no force other than my own inertia that prevents me from moving into the ‘inner circle’ of peer pressure, political pressure, social pressure, or even religious pressure. Apparently, I have my own inertia to thank if I resist any acceleration toward inimical behavior by forces I perceive to be outside myself. Let me think…Oh! So, when I am encouraged to go with the flow, race toward some purpose by the social vehicle that carries me, I can interpret my own resistance as a preservation of the steady motion of my life because, just as in physics, I know that in free fall or in a sports car launched into space, I will tend to do what I am doing. But sometimes, I will perceive a force that really isn’t a true force because I misinterpret my resistance to do something as an external force acting on me when, in fact, I just have a natural tendency to be who I am, and that natural tendency is my character inertia.”
“Bill, what’s gotten into you? I’m astounded.”
“Sorry, I thought I was in psychology class or sompthin. Was there a question?”
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