obsidianvault/physics/Force and Translational Dynamics/System and Center of Mass.md

Force and Translational Dynamics

system in physics refers to the group of objects chosen for analysis a system may be influenced by objects outside the system if a system isnt influenced by outside things, its interaction is internal

depending on the study, you can choose to leave things in or out (obviously)

if multiple objects in a system move together or dont influence how the system interacts externally, it can be treated as a single object.

Center of Mass

Center of mass is the average position of the total mass in the system.

For many calculations, you can treat the system as a single object if you grab the center of mass.

For a regular uniform object, the COM is usually the center. For objects with symmetrical mass distributions, the center of mass is in the center of the lines of symmetry. For irregularly shaped objects, it's skewed (no shit).

Equation is:

\vec{x}_{cm}=\frac{\Sigma m_i\vec{x}_i}{\Sigma m_i}