Point mass

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An example of a point mass graphed on a grid. The grey mass can be simplified to a point mass (the black circle). It becomes practical to represent point mass as small circle, or dot, as an actual point is invisible.

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Point particle . (Discuss)

Point mass (pointlike mass) is an idealistic term used to describe either matter which is infinitely small, or an object which can be thought of as infinitely small. This concept in terms of size is similar to that of point particles, however unlike point particles the object need only be considered infinitely small.

[edit] Application

[edit] Physics

A common use for point mass lies in the analysis of the gravitational force fields. When analyzing the gravitational forces in a system, it becomes impossible to account for every unit of mass individually. When none of the objects in the system have overlapping center of mass circumferences, it is possible to consider of the object as a zero-dimensional point mass.

[edit] Mathematics

A point mass in statistics is a discontinuous segment in a probability distribution. To calculate such point mass, an integration is carried out over the entire range of the random variable, on the probability distribution of the continuous part. After equating this integral to 1, the point mass can be found by further calculation.

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[edit] See also

• Point particle
• Point charge
• Pendulum
• Kinematics
• Position vector
• Random variable
• Shell theorem