Bulletin of the Faculty of Education, Yamaguchi University

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Bulletin of the Faculty of Education, Yamaguchi University Volume 41
published_at 1991-01

A comment on how to understand the concept of the center of gravity

重心概念理解のための一問題
Domen Haruo
Descriptions
A location of the center of gravity (c. of g. ) of a rigid body may be moved to another point when the body is changed its configuration of the mass distributions, nevertheless every part of its body is always in homogeneous, that is, the density is kept in constant everywhere in the body. In this brief note, the present author shows that there are two variations for such the movement of the location of the c. of g. even so the density of matter is always kept in constant during the deformation occuring. First, thelocation may be changed continuously. For instance, as a central angel of a fan-shaped body is widening, the c. of g. changes its location smoothly. Second, the movement of c. of g. may be occurred discontinuously. That is, no sooner the straight rod rotates about its one end and makes the fan like plane than the location of the c. of g. is suddenly changed to the other point.