Can inertia be used as a force for propulsion?
In: 9
It depends on what you mean.
So the answer could be no if you are using inertia to mean “the tendency for objects velocity to remain unchanged unless acted upon by and outside force” and if by propulsion you mean “the force used to change the velocity of an object”
Because with those definitions your question is basically “Can we use the fact that objects don’t change velocity to get them to change velocity?” To which the answer is no, that doesn’t even make a lot of sense.
However, if you are using a more colloquial definition (which you really should never use in a professional context) of “this object has inertia because it’s moving” which is basically just kinetic energy then yeah that’s basically how all propulsion works. You take a moving object and smack it into another object that isn’t moving the way you want it to.
Latest Answers