inertia

noun

• 1a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged:the bureaucratic inertia of the various tiers of government

• 2 Physics a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force: the power required to overcome friction and the inertia of the moving partsSee also moment of inertia.
• [with modifier] resistance to change in some other physical property:the thermal inertia of the oceans will delay the full rise in temperature for a few decades