Mass in special relativity (including the kinetic energy of the gas) only when it is measured in the center of momentum frame. Just as is the case for single particles, the calculated "rest mass" of such a container of gas does not change when it is in motion, although its "relativistic mass" does change. The container may even be subjected to a force which gives it an overall velocity, or else (equivalently) it may be viewed from an inertial frame in which it has an overall velocity (that is, technically, a frame in which its center of mass has a velocity). In this case,
Velocity-addition formula for the perpendicular and parallel components can be cast in vector form as follows, a trick which also works for Lorentz transformations of other 3d physical quantities originally in set up standard configuration. Introduce the velocity vector in the unprimed frame and in the primed frame, and split them into components parallel ( ∥ ) and perpendicular (⊥) to the relative velocity vector (see hide box below) thus then with the usual Cartesian unit basis vectors , set the velocity in the unprimed frame to be which gives, using the results for the standard configuration, where · is the dot