While it is fairly intuitive to appreciate the physical significance of the first moment
of mass, it is more difficult to do the same for the second moment, or moment of inertia.
Consider equation 10.4. It says that torque is proportional to angular acceleration, and the constant of proportionality is this moment of inertia, /. Picture a common hammer or mallet as depicted in Figure 10-2. The head, made of steel, has large mass compared to the light wooden handle. When gripped properly, at the end of the handle, the radius to the mass of the head is large. Its contribution to the total I of the mallet is proportional to the square of the radius from the axis of rotation (your wrist at axis ZZ) to the head. Thus it takes considerably more torque to swing (and thus angularly accelerate) the mallet when it is held properly than if held near the head. As a child you probably chose to hold a hammer close to its head because you lacked the strength to provide the larger torque it needed when held properly. You also found it ineffective in driving nails when held close to the head because you were unable to store very much kinetic energy in it. In a translating system kinetic energy is: