Physics 3151A/B Lecture 8: Systems_Particles
1 May 2016
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Document Summary
Dynamics of systems of particles (most of the material presented in this chapter is taken from thornton and marion, chap. In this chapter we study the dynamics of systems composed potentially of a large number of particles, and inquire on conservation theorems and the behavior of systems that exhibit mass loss (e. g. , rockets). For a system composed of n particles, the total mass m is given by. M = m (7. 1) where m is the mass of the !th particle, with ! If each particle is (mathematically) connected to the origin of the system through a position vector r. , then the centre of mass vector is defined as. For a continuous system, the summation over ! is replaced with an integral over an infinitesimal amount of mass dm such that. It is important to realize that the position vector r of the centre of mass depends on the origin chosen for the coordinate systems.
