Question

The mass of a body is a measure of its _______.
A. Momentum
B. Force
C. Inertia
D. None of these

Answer 1

- Hint: In these types of questions it is better to correlate between what you have learned in other topics. If the term inertia has ever come up in mechanics and for what purpose it is used for. Remember Newton's first law of motion and correlate it with the mass of a body.

Complete step-by-step solution -
We all have heard about Newton’s first law of motion which states that,
“An object which is at rest or in uniform motion continues its state of rest or uniform motion unless or until it is acted upon by an external force.”
What is interesting is that this law is also called the Law of Inertia. When we beat a dirty blanket with a stick the dust particles on the sheet come out. We can explain this by saying that the dust particles on the dirty blanket are in a state of rest and when the blanket is beaten by a stick, an external force is provided on the blanket and the blanket is in motion but the dust particles are still at rest. So, due to ‘inertia’ of rest associated with dust particles it doesn’t move with the blanket but it comes out.
See how inertia is expressed as something which opposes a change in the state. So, if we try to move a body of the same dimensions but for having two different masses, it will be easier to move the body with less mass. So, we can say that the heavier body has larger inertia compared to the lighter body.
Therefore, we can say that the mass of the body is related to its inertia.
So, the answer to the question is (c)-Inertia

Note: We have a moment of inertia associated with the body in rotational motion. Inertia is important in all aspects of mechanics and relativity.
Momentum is the property associated with a body which is in motion with a velocity v. It is dependent on both the mass and velocity of the body and not exclusive to mass only.
We say that a body is being accelerated when an external force acts on it. So, the force is something which is responsible for the rate change of momentum associated with a body and not on mass.