Rigid body possible to reconstruct the position of all the other particles, provided that their time-invariant position relative to the three selected particles is known. However, typically a different, mathematically more convenient, but equivalent approach is used. The position of the whole body is represented by: Thus, the position of a rigid body has two components: linear and angular, respectively. The same is true for other kinematic and kinetic quantities describing the motion of a rigid body, such as linear and angular velocity, acceleration, momentum, impulse, and kinetic energy. The linear position can be represented by a vector with its tail at
Rigid body its position and orientation vary with time. In the kinematic sense, these changes are referred to as "translation" and "rotation", respectively. Indeed, the position of a rigid body can be viewed as a hypothetic translation and rotation (roto-translation) of the body starting from a hypothetic reference position (not necessarily coinciding with a position actually taken by the body during its motion). Velocity (also called linear velocity) and angular velocity are measured with respect to a frame of reference. The linear velocity of a rigid body is a vector quantity, equal to the time rate of change of its linear position.