Talk:Center of Mass

From High School Online Collaborative Writing

Why are top heavy items more prone to falling over? Does it have something to do with the rotation of the earth? And how does the earth's rotation affect something's center of mass?-Robert Townley

I would imagine that it has more to do with the Earth's gravitational pull than its rotation. Newton's law of universal gravitation states that the forces exerted upon two objects are directly proportional to their masses. Because heavier items are more massive, they would be "more prone" to falling over. An object's center of mass is defined as where its mass is concentrated. I've never read anything on how Earth's rotation would effect where an object's mass is concentrated. --Yuany 01:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Just an interesting fact: you can keep a soda can balanced tilted when only 1/3 of the content is left. Try it, it works! -Jennifer Huang

Wow, after I read your comment I interrupted my studying for tomorrow's Spanish Literature final exam and immediately dashed to the downstairs deli to get a can of caffeine-free coke (it's kind of late right now to drink caffeinated coke). I gulped two-thirds of the coke and tried the trick. It worked like magic! It must've been because when there is one-third of the soda left, the center of mass falls within the base of support when the can's tilted. This gravity-defying trick has opened my eyes to a whole new world on center of mass. Truly amazing! --Yuany 02:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Just wondering as I read this, how do you test or know that the center of gravity would follow a parabolic path? And I just wanted to mention something really minor. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is an engineering disaster. It was not engineered to lean. The foundation was designed badly which ended up causing the tower to lean. I believe engineerers are currently trying to fix the issue, because sooner or later the Leaning Tower of Pisa would lean a little too much.-- Shirley L. from Bard High School Early College

You can test it by throwing something up in the air and capturing the path with a multi-flash camera. And on the Leaning Tower of Pisa: I just read an article about its history and I will change my information on the Wikipage accordingly. Thanks babe! --Yuany 03:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

You said "The term center of gravity is used interchangeably with center of mass as long as the object experiences only earth’s gravitational force" and that made me think about an objects center of mass in space. Now, in space, there is no gravity, how would center of mass be defined in a vacuum? Clearly it wouldn't be dependant on external forces. -- Samantha Saly

How fascinating. In that case I would imagine that technically an object would still have a center of mass, a point where its mass is concentrated. However, the center of mass would probably have no significance since it will react to no gravitational force of any kind. I would love to see other folks at the wiki-community extend and build upon this discussion. --Yuany 03:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Heys, great job on this wikipage. just wondering would the actualy center of mass still be a parabolic path if you threw a object straight up? -User:Victor

Why, thank you. It is virtually impossible to throw an object "straight up," espcially by hand. But theoretically, if an object's thrown straight up, the center of mass would follow a straight line. Maybe you should try shooting an object straight up and observe with a multi-flash camera and let me know how it went. :) --Yuany 03:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This page was so well done, I don't actually have a question, you answered them all, hell I didn't actually know anything about this until I read your wiki page! Thanks a bunch! - Alvaro