(ELI5) What is the center of gravity?
In: 9
The center of gravity is just the average location of all of a thing’s weight.
Gravity acts on mass. Every piece of an object has mass and is pulled on by gravity (producing weight).
Figuring out how gravity affects something with a complicated shape can be tough. One trick is to imagine the object is actually just a single point with the same total mass.
Of course, you want this point to be located where the average of all of the object’s mass is – and that’s the center of gravity.
So for example, if you want to figure out whether someone is going to fall over or not, you can just check whether their center of gravity is over a part of their feet. If it’s not, they’re going to fall.
It’s effectively a summary of where gravity is applying force to an object.
Latest Answers