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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.
A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force. At any instant of time, the net force on a body is equal to the rate at which the body's momentum is changing with time. If two bodies exert forces on each other, these forces have the same magnitude but opposite directions.
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 ().
There are two main descriptions of motion: dynamics and kinematics.Dynamics is general, since the momenta, forces and energy of the particles are taken into account. In this instance, sometimes the term dynamics refers to the differential equations that the system satisfies (e.g., Newton's second law or Euler–Lagrange equations), and sometimes to the solutions to those equations.
Internal forces between the particles that make up a body do not contribute to changing the momentum of the body as there is an equal and opposite force resulting in no net effect. [3] The linear momentum of a rigid body is the product of the mass of the body and the velocity of its center of mass v cm. [1] [4] [5]
Angular momentum (sometimes called moment of momentum or rotational momentum) is the rotational analog of linear momentum. It is an important physical quantity because it is a conserved quantity – the total angular momentum of a closed system remains constant. Angular momentum has both a direction and a magnitude, and both are conserved.
Examples of integrals of motion are the angular momentum vector, =, or a Hamiltonian without time dependence, such as (,) = + (). An example of a function that is a constant of motion but not an integral of motion would be the function C ( x , v , t ) = x − v t {\displaystyle C(x,v,t)=x-vt} for an object moving at a constant speed in one ...
A body at rest will remain at rest, and a body in motion will remain in motion unless it is acted upon by an external force. (This is known as the law of inertia.) Force is equal to the change in momentum per change in time ().