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In Newtonian mechanics, momentum (pl.: momenta or momentums; more specifically linear momentum or translational momentum) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction.
Since the partial derivative is a linear operator, the momentum operator is also linear, and because any wave function can be expressed as a superposition of other states, when this momentum operator acts on the entire superimposed wave, it yields the momentum eigenvalues for each plane wave component. These new components then superimpose to ...
The scalar W μ W μ is a Lorentz-invariant operator, and commutes with the four-momentum, and can thus serve as a label for irreducible unitary representations of the Poincaré group. That is, it can serve as the label for the spin , a feature of the spacetime structure of the representation, over and above the relativistically invariant label ...
The moment of force, or torque, is a first moment: =, or, more generally, .; Similarly, angular momentum is the 1st moment of momentum: =.Momentum itself is not a moment.; The electric dipole moment is also a 1st moment: = for two opposite point charges or () for a distributed charge with charge density ().
A scalar in physics and other areas of science is also a scalar in mathematics, as an element of a mathematical field used to define a vector space.For example, the magnitude (or length) of an electric field vector is calculated as the square root of its absolute square (the inner product of the electric field with itself); so, the inner product's result is an element of the mathematical field ...
The angular momentum of m is proportional to the perpendicular component v ⊥ of the velocity, or equivalently, to the perpendicular distance r ⊥ from the origin. Angular momentum is a vector quantity (more precisely, a pseudovector) that represents the product of a body's rotational inertia and rotational velocity (in radians/sec) about a ...
Likewise, the momentum vector is the velocity vector (a polar vector) times mass (a scalar), so is a polar vector. Angular momentum is the cross product of a displacement (a polar vector) and momentum (a polar vector), and is therefore a pseudovector. Torque is angular momentum (a pseudovector) divided by time (a scalar), so is also a pseudovector.
This means that forces follow a different set of mathematical rules than physical quantities that do not have direction (denoted scalar quantities). For example, when determining what happens when two forces act on the same object, it is necessary to know both the magnitude and the direction of both forces to calculate the result. If both of ...