ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Inertial supercharging effect

Okay kiddo, today we are going to talk about something called the inertial supercharging effect. Do you know what a supercharger is? It's a device that helps a car engine to get more power and go faster.

Now, imagine you're riding a bike and you're trying to go as fast as you can. You pedal really hard, but then you hit a hill and you start to slow down. That's because the hill is pushing against you and it's making it harder for you to keep going.

But what if you could use the hill to help you go faster instead of slowing you down? That's where the inertial supercharging effect comes in.

When we're going up a hill, our bike is also going up and down, bouncing over the bumps in the road. This bouncing actually creates energy, kind of like a spring. And when we go down the other side of the hill, all that energy is released and it helps us go faster.

Just like a supercharger helps a car engine get more power, the inertial supercharging effect helps our bike go faster without us having to work as hard. Pretty cool, right?