Mass in special relativity the mass of a moving particle." When the relative velocity is zero, formula_33 is simply equal to 1, and the relativistic mass is reduced to the rest mass as one can see in the next two equations below. As the velocity increases toward the speed of light "c", the denominator of the right side approaches zero, and consequently formula_33 approaches infinity. In the formula for momentum the mass that occurs is the relativistic mass. In other words, the relativistic mass is the proportionality constant between the velocity and the momentum. While Newton's second law remains valid in the form the
Variable-mass system on a body (F = 0) the variable-mass system motion equation reduces to If the velocity of the ejected propellant, v, is assumed have the opposite direction as the rocket's acceleration, dv/d"t", the scalar equivalent of this equation can be written as from which d"t" can be canceled out to give Integration by separation of variables gives By rearranging and letting Δ"v" = "v" - "v", one arrives at the standard form of the ideal rocket equation: where "m" is the initial total mass, including propellant, "m" is the final total mass, "v" is the effective exhaust velocity (often denoted