Center of mass rigid body, the gravity forces will not cause the body to rotate, which means the weight of the body can be considered to be concentrated at the center of mass. The linear and angular momentum of a collection of particles can be simplified by measuring the position and velocity of the particles relative to the center of mass. Let the system of particles "P", "i"=1...,"n" of masses "m" be located at the coordinates r with velocities v. Select a reference point R and compute the relative position and velocity vectors, The total linear and angular momentum vectors relative to the
Effective mass (solid-state physics) are different. These differences are important, for example in thermoelectric materials, where high conductivity, generally associated with light mass, is desired at the same time as high Seebeck coefficient, generally associated with heavy mass. Methods for assessing the electronic structures of different materials in this context have been developed. Certain III-V compounds such as GaAs and InSb have far smaller effective masses than tetrahedral group IV materials like Si and Ge. In the simplest Drude picture of electronic transport, the maximum obtainable charge carrier velocity is inversely proportional to the effective mass: formula_17 where formula_18 with formula_19 being the electronic