A figure skater spins with arms extended. When she pulls her arms in, what happe

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Question: A figure skater spins with arms extended. When she pulls her arms in, what happens to her rotational speed?

Options:

Correct Answer: Increases

Solution:

Pulling her arms in decreases her moment of inertia, causing her rotational speed to increase to conserve angular momentum.

A figure skater spins with arms extended. When she pulls her arms in, what happens to her rotational speed?

A figure skater spins with arms extended. When she pulls her arms in, what happens to her rotational speed?

Step 1: Understand that the figure skater is spinning with her arms out. This is her starting position.
Step 2: Know that when she pulls her arms in, she changes her body shape while spinning.
Step 3: Recognize that pulling her arms in makes her moment of inertia smaller. Moment of inertia is a measure of how spread out her mass is.
Step 4: Remember the principle of angular momentum, which states that if no external forces act on a spinning object, its angular momentum stays the same.
Step 5: Since her moment of inertia decreases when she pulls her arms in, her rotational speed must increase to keep the angular momentum constant.

Angular Momentum Conservation – The principle that the total angular momentum of a closed system remains constant if no external torques act on it.
Moment of Inertia – A measure of an object's resistance to changes in its rotation, which depends on the mass distribution relative to the axis of rotation.
Rotational Speed – The rate at which an object rotates, often measured in revolutions per minute or radians per second.