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
Moment (physics) of "n" corresponds to a different moment: the 1st moment corresponds to "n" = 1; the 2nd moment to "n" = 2, etc. The 0th moment ("n" = 0) is sometimes called the "monopole moment"; the 1st moment ("n" = 1) is sometimes called the "dipole moment", and the 2nd moment ("n" = 2) is sometimes called the "quadrupole moment", especially in the context of electric charge distributions. Moments of mass: Assuming a density function that is finite and localized to a particular region, outside that region a 1/"r" potential may be expressed as a series of spherical harmonics: The