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solution

Let's draw a diagram to see what's going on:

{

  figure135

Define coordinates for this problem. Put the first mass tex2html_wrap_inline1069 at the origin tex2html_wrap_inline1173 , put mass tex2html_wrap_inline1071 at the coordinate tex2html_wrap_inline1177 . Lets apply definition eqn. 1.17. Note that the y and z coordinates of the center of mass are zero, the only non-trivial one is the x coordinate. So in the x-direction

equation140

Note that if we made tex2html_wrap_inline1069 much heavier than tex2html_wrap_inline1071 than the center mass would be shifted to the origin. If the converse where true, the center of mass would be shifted towards tex2html_wrap_inline1071 . When they're equal, the center of mass lies right in the middle between the objects.



Joshua Deutsch
Fri Jan 17 12:19:41 PST 1997