Moment of Inertia Without Integrals

Here at the Universidad de Los Andes (Bogota) we teach physics to first-year science and engineering students who have not yet completed their calculus courses. Derivatives and integrals are introduced in the kinematics lessons before they are studied more formally in math classes. Even toward the end of the first physics course, when we arrive at the subject of rotation, integrals are not yet very familiar but usually they are a must for computing moments of inertia. For some objects, however, there is an alternative.