Question
Define inertia of direction. Give some examples of inertia of direction.
Solution
The inability of a body to change by itself its direction of motion is called Inertia of direction.
Examples of inertia of direction:
i) A dog chases a hare, the hare runs along a zig-zag path. It becomes more difficult for the dog to catch the hare because dog has more inertia of direction than that of the hare.
(ii) Consider a stone being rotated at the end of a string in a circle. If the string is suddenly released, the stone flies off tangentially to its circular path.
(iii) As a bicycle moves, the water drops sticking to its tyre start leaving it tangentially.
