Eli5 What is the differences between angular momentum of a particle and a rigid body?

Question

Eli5 What is the differences between angular momentum of a particle and a rigid body?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Particles are very small, so angular momentum isn’t measured in the same way. But really, it’s the same concept and the measurement difference is really more about instrumentation than angular momentum.

There is a difference for the electron, it has quantized orbital angular momentum (OAM), because it’s a quantum particle and the rules of rigid body classical mechanics aren’t directly applicable.