Center of mass

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“Centre of gravity” redirects here. For the military concept, see Center of gravity (military).
For barycenters in geometry, see centroid.

The center of mass or mass center is the mean location of all the mass in a system. In the case
of a rigid body, the position of the center of mass is fixed in relation to the body. In the case of a
loose distribution of masses in free space, such as shot from a shotgun or the planets of the solar
system, the position of the center of mass is a point in space among them that may not
correspond to the position of any individual mass. The use of the mass center often allows the
use of simplified equations of motion, and it is a convenient reference point for many other
calculations in physics, such as angular momentum or the moment of inertia. In many
applications, such as orbital mechanics, objects can be replaced by point masses located at their
mass centers for the purposes of analysis.

The term center of mass is often used interchangeably with center of gravity, but they are
physically different concepts. They happen to coincide in a uniform gravitational field, but where
gravity is not uniform, center of gravity refers to the mean location of the gravitational force
acting on a body. This results in small but measurable gravitational torque that must be
accounted for in the operation of artificial satellites.

Barycenter may also refer to the center of mass, but is most commonly used in orbital
mechanics to refer to the point where the gravitational forces exerted by two objects cancel.

The center of mass of a body does not generally coincide with its geometric center, and this
property can be exploited. Engineers try to design a sports car's center of mass as low as possible
to make the car handle better. When high jumpers perform a "Fosbury Flop", they bend their
body in such a way that it is possible for the jumper to clear the bar while his or her center of
mass does not.[1]

The center of momentum frame is an inertial frame defined as the inertial frame in which the
center of mass of a system is at rest. A specific center of momentum frame in which the center of
mass is not only at rest, but also at the origin of the coordinate system, is sometimes called the
center of mass frame, or center of mass coordinate system.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Definition
• 2 Examples
• 3 History
 • 4 Derivation of center of mass
• 5 Alternative derivation
• 6 Rotation and centers of mass
• 7 CM frame
• 8 Engineering
o 8.1 Aeronautical significance
• 9 Barycenter in astrophysics and astronomy
o 9.1 Animations
• 10 Locating the center of mass
o 10.1 Of an arbitrary 2D physical shape
o 10.2 Of an L-shaped object
o 10.3 Of a composite shape
o 10.4 By tracing around the perimeter of an object
• 11 See also
• 12 Notes
• 13 References

• 14 External links

[edit] Definition
The center of mass of a system of particles is defined as the average of their positions, ,
weighted by their masses, mi:

For a continuous distribution with mass density and total mass M, the sum becomes an
integral:

If an object has uniform density then its center of mass is the same as the centroid of its shape.

[edit] Examples
• The center of mass of a two-particle system lies on the line connecting the particles (or,
more precisely, their individual centers of mass). The center of mass is closer to the more
massive object; for details, see below.
• The center of mass of a ring is at the center of the ring (in the air).
• The center of mass of a solid triangle lies on all three medians and therefore at the
centroid, which is also the average of the three vertices.
 • The center of mass of a rectangle is at the intersection of the two diagonals.
• In a spherically symmetric body, the center of mass is at the center. This approximately
applies to the Earth: the density varies considerably, but it mainly depends on depth and
less on the latitude and longitude coordinates.
• More generally, for any symmetry of a body, its center of mass will be a fixed point of
that symmetry.

[edit] History
The concept of center of mass was first introduced by the ancient Greek mathematician,
physicist, and engineer Archimedes of Syracuse. Archimedes showed that the torque exerted on
a lever by weights resting at various points along the lever is the same as what it would be if all
of the weights were moved to a single point — their center of mass. In work on floating bodies
he demonstrated that the orientation of a floating object is the one that makes its center of mass
as low as possible. He developed mathematical techniques for finding the centers of mass of
objects of uniform density of various well-defined shapes, in particular a triangle, a hemisphere,
and a frustum (of a circular paraboloid).

In the Middle Ages, theories on the center of mass were further developed by Abū Rayhān
Bīrūnī, Zakaria Razi (Latinized as Rhazes), Omar Khayyám, and al-Khazini.[2]

Newton's second law is refomulated with respect to the center of mass in Euler's first law.

[edit] Derivation of center of mass

The following equations of motion assume that there is a system of particles governed by
internal and external forces. An internal force is a force caused by the interaction of the particles
within the system. An external force is a force that originates from outside the system, and acts
on one or more particles within the system. The external force need not be due to a uniform field.

For any system with no external forces, the center of mass moves with constant velocity. This
applies for all systems with classical internal forces, including magnetic fields, electric fields,
chemical reactions, and so on. More formally, this is true for any internal forces that satisfy the
weak form of Newton's Third Law.

The total momentum for any system of particles is given by

Where M indicates the total mass, and vcm is the velocity of the center of mass. This velocity can
be computed by taking the time derivative of the position of the center of mass.

An analogue to Newton's Second Law is

Where F indicates the sum of all external forces on the system, and acm indicates the acceleration
of the center of mass.

Letting the total internal force of the system.

where is the total mass of the system and is a vector yet to be defined, since:

and

then

We therefore have a vectorial definition for center of mass in terms of the total forces in the
system. This is particularly useful for two-body systems.

[edit] Alternative derivation

Consider first two bodies, with masses m1 and m2, and position vectors r1 and r2. Write M = m1 +
m2 for the total mass of the 2-body system, and R for the position vector of the center of mass.

It is reasonable to require, for any system of masses, that the center of mass lie within the convex
hull of the system. In particular, for a pair of mass points, this means that the tip of R must lie on
the line segment joining the tips of r1 and r2. By geometry, R - r1 = k(r2 - R) for some positive
constant k. Taking magnitudes on both sides of this equation, we get d1 = kd2, where d1 is the
distance from the center of mass to body 1, and d2 is the distance from the center of mass to body
2. The constant k should obviously depend only on the masses m1 and m2, and we will examine
the nature of this dependence.

Assuming the total mass M is nonzero, it is clear that if m2 = 0, the center of mass should
coincide with body 1, and d1 = 0. This means d2 = D, the total distance between the two bodies,
and m1 = M. Symmetry demands that these relations remain true when the subscripts 1 and 2 are
interchanged everywhere.

The simplest model satisfying these requirements is the linear one, d1 = (D/M)m2 and d2 =
(D/M)m1.
Under this model, we have k = d1/d2 = m2/m1. Therefore, after multiplying our vector equation by
m1, we find that m1(R - r1) = m2(r2 − R), or (m1 + m2)R = m1r1 + m2r2. Thus,

Now suppose there is a third body, of mass m3 and position r3. Temporarily break the symmetry
between the three bodies, and define the 3-body center of mass as the 2-body center of mass
determined by body 3 together with a single body of mass M0 = m1 + m2 placed at the center of
mass of bodies 1 and 2, whose position vector we now denote by R0. The formula derived above
gives

Since R turns out to be symmetric in the mi and ri, it would not have mattered had we started by
combining bodies 2 and 3, or bodies 1 and 3, instead of bodies 1 and 2. This kind of reasoning
clearly extends to any number of masses, and yields the formula

So our simple model of the 2-body center of mass uniquely and consistently determines the
corresponding formula in any number of mass points. Writing M = m1 + m2 + ... + mn, the above
formula for the center of mass may be expressed in the form

Differentiating both sides yields the principle that

i.e., the sum of the momenta of a number of bodies is the momentum of their center of mass. It is
this principle that gives precise expression to the intuitive notion that the system as a whole
behaves like a mass of M placed at R, and justifies our simple linear model of the one-
dimensional center of mass.

[edit] Rotation and centers of mass

Diagram of an educational toy that balances on a point: the CM (C) settles below its support (P).
Any object whose CM is below the fulcrum will not topple.

The suspending chair trick makes use of the human body's center of mass, and the fact that it's
surprisingly high.

The center of mass is often called the center of gravity because any uniform gravitational field g
acts on a system as if the mass M of the system were concentrated at the center of mass R. This
is seen in at least two ways:

• The gravitational potential energy of a system is equal to the potential energy of a point
particle having the same mass M located at R.
• The gravitational torque on a system equals the torque of a force Mg acting at R:

If the gravitational field acting on a body is not uniform, then the center of mass does not
necessarily exhibit these convenient properties concerning gravity. As the situation is put in
Feynman's influential textbook The Feynman Lectures on Physics:[citation needed]
 "The center of mass is sometimes called the center of gravity, for the reason that, in many
cases, gravity may be considered uniform. ...In case the object is so large that the
nonparallelism of the gravitational forces is significant, then the center where one must
apply the balancing force is not simple to describe, and it departs slightly from the center
of mass. That is why one must distinguish between the center of mass and the center of
gravity."

Many authors have been less careful, stating that when gravity is not uniform, "the center of
gravity" departs from the CM. This usage seems to imply a well-defined "center of gravity"
concept for non-uniform fields. Symon, in his textbook Mechanics, shows that the center of
gravity of an extended body must always be defined relative to an external point, at which
location resides a point mass that is exerting a gravitational force on the object in question. In
fact, as Symon says:

"For two extended bodies, no unique centers of gravity can in general be defined, even
relative to each other, except in special cases, as when the bodies are far apart, or when
one of them is a sphere....The general problem of determining the gravitational forces
between bodies is usually best treated by means of the concepts of the field theory of
gravitation..."

Even when considering tidal forces on planets, it is sufficient to use centers of mass to find the
overall motion. In practice, for non-uniform fields, one simply does not speak of a "center of
gravity".[3]

[edit] CM frame
Main article: Center of mass frame

The angular momentum vector for a system is equal to the angular momentum of all the particles
around the center of mass, plus the angular momentum of the center of mass, as if it were a
single particle of mass M:

This is a corollary of the Parallel Axis Theorem.

This section requires expansion.

[edit] Engineering
This section requires expansion.

[edit] Aeronautical significance

The center of mass is an important point on an aircraft, which significantly affects the stability of
the aircraft. To ensure the aircraft is safe to fly, it is critical that the center of mass fall within
specified limits. This range varies by aircraft, but as a rule of thumb it is centered about a point
one quarter of the way from the wing leading edge to the wing trailing edge (the quarter chord
point). If the center of mass is ahead of the forward limit, the aircraft will be less maneuverable,
possibly to the point of being unable to rotate for takeoff or flare for landing. If the center of
mass is behind the aft limit, the moment arm of the elevator is reduced, which makes it more
difficult to recover from a stalled condition. The aircraft will be more maneuverable, but also
less stable, and possibly so unstable that it is impossible to fly.

[edit] Barycenter in astrophysics and astronomy

Motion of Barycenter of solar system relative to the Sun.

The barycenter (or barycentre; from the Greek βαρύκεντρον) is the point between two objects
where they balance each other. For example, it is the center of mass where two or more celestial
bodies orbit each other. When a moon orbits a planet, or a planet orbits a star, both bodies are
actually orbiting around a point that lies outside the center of the primary (the larger body). For
example, the moon does not orbit the exact center of the Earth, but a point on a line between the
Earth and the Moon approximately 1,710 km below the surface of the Earth, where their
respective masses balance. This is the point about which the Earth and Moon orbit as they travel
around the Sun.

The barycenter is one of the foci of the elliptical orbit of each body. This is an important concept
in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, and the like (see two-body problem).
In a simple two-body case, r1, the distance from the center of the primary to the barycenter is
given by:

where:

a is the distance between the centers of the two bodies;

m1 and m2 are the masses of the two bodies.

r1 is essentially the semi-major axis of the primary's orbit around the barycenter—and r2 = a − r1
the semi-major axis of the secondary's orbit. Where the barycenter is located within the more
massive body, that body will appear to "wobble" rather than following a discernible orbit.

The following table sets out some examples from our solar system. Figures are given rounded to
three significant figures. The last two columns show R1, the radius of the first (more massive)
body, and r1/R1, the ratio of the distance to the barycenter and that radius: a value less than one
shows that the barycenter lies inside the first body.

Examples
Larger m1 Smaller m2 a r1 R1
r1/R1
body (mE=1) body (mE=1) (km) (km) (km)
Remarks
Earth 1 Moon 0.0123 384,000 4,670 6,380 0.732
The Earth has a perceptible "wobble".
0.000254
Pluto 0.0021 Charon 19,600 2,110 1,150 1.83
(0.121 mPluto)
Both bodies have distinct orbits around the barycenter, and as such Pluto and Charon were
considered as a double planet by many before the redefinition of planet in August 2006.
150,000,000
Sun 333,000 Earth 1 449 696,000 0.000646
(1 AU)
The Sun's wobble is barely perceptible.
318 778,000,000
Sun 333,000 Jupiter 742,000 696,000 1.07
(0.000955 mSun) (5.20 AU)
The Sun orbits a barycenter just above its surface.

If m1 ≫ m2—which is true for the Sun and any planet—then the ratio r1/R1 approximates to:

Hence, the barycenter of the Sun-planet system will lie outside the Sun only if:
That is, where the planet is heavy and far from the Sun.

If Jupiter had Mercury's orbit (57,900,000 km, 0.387 AU), the Sun-Jupiter barycenter would be
only 5,500 km from the center of the Sun (r1/R1 ~ 0.08). But even if the Earth had Eris' orbit (68
AU), the Sun-Earth barycenter would still be within the Sun (just over 30,000 km from the
center).

To calculate the actual motion of the Sun, you would need to sum all the influences from all the
planets, comets, asteroids, etc. of the solar system (see n-body problem). If all the planets were
aligned on the same side of the Sun, the combined center of mass would lie about 500,000 km
above the Sun's surface.

The calculations above are based on the mean distance between the bodies and yield the mean
value r1. But all celestial orbits are elliptical, and the distance between the bodies varies between
the apses, depending on the eccentricity, e. Hence, the position of the barycenter varies too, and
it is possible in some systems for the barycenter to be sometimes inside and sometimes outside
the more massive body. This occurs where:

Note that the Sun-Jupiter system, with eJupiter = 0.0484, just fails to qualify: 1.05 ≯ 1.07 > 0.954.

[edit] Animations

Images are representative (made by hand), not simulated.

Two bodies of similar mass Two bodies with a difference in Two bodies with a major Two bodies with
orbiting around a common mass orbiting around a difference in mass orbiting difference in ma
barycenter. (similar to the 90 common barycenter, as in the around a common barycenter around a commo
Antiope system) Pluto-Charon system. (similar to the Earth-Moon (similar to the Su
 system) system)

Two bodies with similar mass orbiting around a common

barycenter with elliptic orbits (a common situation for binary
stars)

[edit] Locating the center of mass

[edit] Of an arbitrary 2D physical shape

This method is useful when one wishes to find the centroid of a complex planar shape with
unknown dimensions. It relies on finding the center of mass of a thin body of homogenous
density having the same shape as the complex planar shape.

Step 3: Suspend the shape from

Step 2: Suspend the shape from another location not too close to
a location near an edge. Drop a the first. Drop a plumb line
Step 1: An arbitrary 2D shape.
plumb line and mark on the again and mark. The intersection
object. of the two lines is the center of
mass.

[edit] Of an L-shaped object

This is a method of determining the center of mass of an L-shaped object.

 1. Divide the shape into two rectangles, as shown in fig 2. Find the center of masses of these
two rectangles by drawing the diagonals. Draw a line joining the centers of mass. The
center of mass of the shape must lie on this line AB.
2. Divide the shape into two other rectangles, as shown in fig 3. Find the centers of mass of
these two rectangles by drawing the diagonals. Draw a line joining the centers of mass.
The center of mass of the L-shape must lie on this line CD.
3. As the center of mass of the shape must lie along AB and also along CD, it is obvious
that it is at the intersection of these two lines, at O. The point O might not lie inside the
L-shaped object.

[edit] Of a composite shape

This method is useful when one wishes to find the location of the centroid or center of mass of
an object that is easily divided into elementary shapes, whose centers of mass are easy to find
(see List of centroids). Here the center of mass will only be found in the x direction. The same
procedure may be followed to locate the center of mass in the y direction.

The shape. It is easily divided into a square, triangle, and circle. Note that
the circle will have negative area.

From the List of centroids, we note the coordinates of the

individual centroids.
 From equation 1 above:

units.

The center of mass of this figure is at a distance of 8.5 units from the left corner of the figure.