Moment of inertia is diagonal and torques around the axes act independently of each other. When a body is free to rotate around an axis, torque must be applied to change its angular momentum. The amount of torque needed to cause any given angular acceleration (the rate of change in angular velocity) is proportional to the moment of inertia of the body. Moment of inertia may be expressed in units of kilogram meter squared (kg·m) in SI units and pound-foot-second squared (lbf·ft·s) in imperial or US units. Moment of inertia plays the role in rotational kinetics that mass (inertia) plays in linear kinetics
Angular velocity particle moves around the origin in a circle; but when there is no cross-radial component, it moves in a straight line from the origin. Since radial motion leaves the angle unchanged, only the cross-radial component of linear velocity contributes to angular velocity. The angular velocity "ω" is the rate of change of angle with respect to time, which can be computed from the cross-radial velocity as: Here the cross-radial speed formula_13 is the signed magnitude of formula_11, positive for counter-clockwise motion, negative for clockwise. Taking polar coordinates for the linear velocity v gives magnitude "v" (linear speed) and angle "θ"