Degrees of freedom (mechanics) has only one degree of freedom because the positions of the cars behind the engine are constrained by the shape of the track. An automobile with highly stiff suspension can be considered to be a rigid body traveling on a plane (a flat, two-dimensional space). This body has three independent degrees of freedom consisting of two components of translation and one angle of rotation. Skidding or drifting is a good example of an automobile's three independent degrees of freedom. The position and orientation of a rigid body in space is defined by three components of translation and three components of
Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry) a fixed surface, then the system has fewer than six degrees of freedom. On the other hand, a system with an extended object that can rotate or vibrate can have more than six degrees of freedom. In classical mechanics, the state of a point particle at any given time is often described with position and velocity coordinates in the Lagrangian formalism, or with position and momentum coordinates in the Hamiltonian formalism. In statistical mechanics, a degree of freedom is a single scalar number describing the microstate of a system. The specification of all microstates of a system is a point