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You can think of the center of mass as a weighted average of the positions
of each mass element, i.e. weighted by the mass of that element, or
equivalently it is the vector sum of the ra, each multiplied by the fraction of
mass at that location.
To get a feeling for CM, let’s look at the center of mass for a two particle
system, which might, for example, represent the Sun and Earth, or two
stars in orbit around each other.
September 17, 2008
Center of Mass and Equation of Motion
1 N m1r1 m2r2
In this case, R
M a 1
m r
a a
m1 m2
, which can be seen in the figure.
CM
m1
It is easy to show that the distance of the CM from m1
and m2 is in the ratio m2/m1. The figure shows the case r1 R m2
where m1 4m2. In particular, if m1 >> m2, then the CM
r2
will be very close to m1.
O
Note that the time derivative of the center of mass for N particles is just the
CM velocity 1 N 1 N
R
M a 1
ma ra
M a 1
pa
V 0
R2 z2
zdz rdr 2p zdz p 2
1 Rz / h 1
V 0 V h
which then leads to the previous result.
If you do not know the volume of a cone, the way to calculate it parallels the
above, but without the z:
V dV rdr df dz
dz rdr df
2p
0
R 2 z 2 pR 2 h
dz rdr 2p dz p 2
Rz / h h
0 0 h 3