Talk:Reduced mass

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I guss a picture of the two-body system would be a good idea?

• "...one mass can be replaced by the reduced mass, if this is compensated by replacing the other mass by the sum of both masses". So we replace $m_{1}\to \mu \$ and $m_{2}\to m_{1}+m_{2}\$ (is my understanding correct?), and the sum of both new masses have been larger then the initial mass of the sistem. It's a blunder! (SanchoOoPansa (talk) 23:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC))

significance of reduced mass

it was nice to read the concept of reduced mass from this site. can any one plz tell me the physical significancr of reduced mass . also if one body is moving with velocity 'a' and another with velocity 'b' then how can we find the velocity of reduced mass.

it was nice to read the concept of reduced mass from this site. can any one plz tell me the physical significancr of reduced mass . also if one body is moving with velocity 'a' and another with velocity 'b' then how can we find the velocity of reduced mass. can u plz mail me its answer to :pbasu41@yahoo.com

I don't think the reduced mass has a velocity in your term! i mean the reduced mass is not a certain amount of mass in a certain point, it is just the certain amount of mass in the mass center point. you may want to argue to find what is the velocity of the mass center..... not the reduced mass. In reduced mass it doesn't matter how far and how are the masses from each other. it only depends on the mass of the separate masses.

One of the places that we use it is in the radius of the Bohr orbit. you can see we use the reduced mass foe electron and proton in there. When ever you have to know what happens to the system (not the elements) and you are looking forward the mass center you may use the reduced mass. -sona- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Astrosona (talk • contribs) 23:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

If you were looking at two separated equal mass value particles, a calculation of their reduced mass value would give you a mass existence value of 1/2 of the individual masses located at mid distance between them. Which would not be a correct evaluation of their effect on an off side oriented particle, nor would it be correct for one whose position is aligned with the line of connection of the two connected masses.WFPM (talk) 19:13, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

planets orbiting

Have I understood this correctly: does "reduced mass" also apply to a planet and its satellite orbiting a star? What I mean is: is it more accurate to consider the total mass/inertia of the Earth-Moon system orbiting the Sun as if they were a single body, rather than considering the Earth alone as orbiting the Sun? BigSteve (talk) 12:22, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

How can two points not be collinear?

The section on the supposedly special case of two point masses in a line begins, "In a system with two point masses m1 and m2 such that they are co-linear". What I don't understand is how can two points not be collinear? The whole section looks like a derivation of what's already been derived, and therefore adds nothing. Vaughan Pratt (talk) 16:56, 17 October 2022 (UTC)