Physics-31.Rotational Mechanics
5.1 DEFINITION OF CENTRE OF MASS Centre of mass: Every physical system has associated with it a certain point whose motion characterizes the motion of the whole system. When the system moves under some external forces than this point moves as if the entire mass of the system is concentrated at this point and also the external force is applied at his point of translational motion. This point is called the centre of mass of the system. Centre of mass of system of n point masses or n particles is that point about which moment of mass of the system is zero, it means that if about a particular origin the moment of mass of system of n point masses is zero, then that particular origin is the centre of mass of the system. The concept of centre of mass is a pure mathematical concept. If there are n particles having mass m1, m2 ….m n and are placed in space (x1, y1, z1), (x2, y2, z2) ……….(x n, y n, z n) then centre of mass of system is defined as (X, Y, Z) where = Y = and Z = where