Inertia--The New Wheel

Inertia is the central force for all things: speed, time, space, gravity. If we could figure out how to manipulate inertia, a brand new age would be ushered in that hasn't been seen since the beginning of time...it will make cavemen of us all.

So what is Inertia? Really?

Etymology: New Latin, from Latin, lack of skill, from inert-, iners
Date: 1713
1 a: a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force b: an analogous property of other physical quantities (as electricity)
2: indisposition to motion, exertion, or change

The one everyone is familiar with is, "An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by another force. Or, a motionless object will stay motionless unless acted upon by some other force." -Newton's First Law

So here's the problem with inertia, it kills! The reason you go through the windshield in a car accident is because you are in motion, and stay in motion, until you've bounced down the street a ways and friction has stalled your momentum. Inertia is central to all concepts concerning movement of anything. In bowling, pins fall, because of the bowling ball, which moves because of the person bowling, who moved because of muscular contraction, which moved due to electrical impulses, which were caused by stimuli from the brain, which was acting according to visual cues.......bottom line, something's gotta cause the movement.

Things don't just move. Why? Mostly because of gravity. So the question is, what happens if there is no gravity? In space, where there is no gravity, things still have to have a force of some sort applied to it before it moves...otherwise it remains motionless. The difference is that the motion is proportional to the force applied. In space if you step off of the shuttle, you move proportional to the force and direction from which the force was applied; i.e., strait out. If you step off of a building on earth, gravity causes you to fall disproportionately to the force applied and you fall downward at increasing speed until you hit terminal velocity. The bigger problem is when you land...the force at which you land is very disproportionate to the force applied to move you in the first place and is therefore quite detrimental to the body. So think about this: if there wasn't inertia, in other words, if we could manipulate the force/movement equation, force would become a non-binding requirement for movement. You could move and stop moving without being affected by force. Is it possible? Is it mostly fiction? Well, cloaking devices used to be considered pure fiction...