What is the law of inertia? Give an example of inertia in action.

Answer

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its velocity. This includes changes to the object's speed, or direction of motion. An aspect of this property is the tendency of objects to keep moving in a straight line at a constant speed, when no forces act upon them.

W= fd
where f is an applied force and d is the distance over which it is applied. when a parachuting skydiver is at constant velocity, he is experiencing "terminal velocity", the point at which his acceleration down is canceled out by air resistance. that means that the resisting force of the air is equal to his weight, but in the opposite direction. with this, we can solve for the work done by the force.
w = fd
w = (92.0)(9.81 m/s^2) (325)
w= 2.93 x 10^5 j
the value for work in this case is positive because it is pushing up on the skydiver, who has a downward force of gravity.
therefore the answer is 2.93 x 10^5 j