Question

State the expression for velocity of the centre of mass of a system of n particles and for continuous mass distribution.

Answer 1

Let v₁, v₂,…..v_n be the velocities of a system of point masses m₁, m₂, … m_n. Velocity of the centre of mass of the system is given by

x, y and z components of \(\overrightarrow{\text{v}}\) can be obtained similarly.

For continuous distribution, \(\overrightarrow{\text{v}}_{cm}=\frac{\int\,\overrightarrow{v}dm}{M}\)