As mentioned above in the section on balance, one effect of turning the front wheel is a roll moment caused by gyroscopic precession. The magnitude of this moment is proportional to the moment of inertia of the front wheel, its spin rate (forward motion), the rate that the rider turns the front wheel by applying a torque to the handlebars, and the cosine of the angle between the steering axis and the vertical.[9] For a sample motorcycle moving at 22 m/s (50 mph) that has a front wheel with a moment of inertia of 0.6 kg·m2, turning the front wheel one degree in half a second generates a roll moment of 3.5 N·m. In comparison, the lateral force on the front tire as it tracks out from under the motorcycle reaches a maximum of 50 N. This, acting on the 0.6 m (2 ft) height of the center of mass, generates a roll moment of 30 N·m. While the moment from gyroscopic forces is only 12% of this, it can play a significant part because it begins to act as soon as the rider applies the torque, instead of building up more slowly as the wheel out-tracks. This can be especially helpful in motorcycle racing. In classical mechanics, moment of inertia, also called mass moment of inertia, rotational inertia, polar moment of inertia of mass, or the angular mass (SI units kg·m2, US units lbm ft2), is a property of a distribution of mass in space that measures its resistance to rotational acceleration about an axis. Newton's first law, which describes the inertia of a body in linear motion, can be extended to the inertia of a body rotating about an axis using the moment of inertia. That is, an object that is rota ing at constant angular velocity will remain rotating unless acted upon by an external torque. In this way, the moment of inertia plays the same role in rotational dynamics as mass does in linear dynamics, describing the relationship between angular momentum and angular velocity, torque and angular acceleration. The symbols I and sometimes J are usually used to refer to the moment of inertia or polar moment of inertia. The moment of the inertia force on a particle around an axis multiplies the mass of the particle by the square of its distance to the axis, and forms a parameter called the moment of inertia. The moments of inertia of individual particles sum to define the moment of inertia of a body rotating about an axis. For rigid bodies moving in a plane, such as a compound pendulum, the moment of inertia is a scalar, but for movement in three dimensions, such as a spinning top, the moment of inertia becomes a matrix, also called a tensor. Moment of force (often just moment) is the tendency of a force to twist or rotate an object; see the article torque for details. A moment is valued mathematically as the product of the force and the moment arm. The moment arm is the perpendicular distance from the point of rotation, to the line of action of the force. The moment may be thought of as a measure of the tendency of the force to cause rotation about an imaginary axis through a point.[1] (Note: In mechanical and civil engineering, "moment" and "torque" have different meanings, while in physics they are synonyms. See the discussion in the "torque" article, or the article couple (mechanics).)