Editor Staff asked 1 year ago
For an object with the centre of mass at the origin, the x-coordinates of particles of the object _____
(a) may be all positive
(b) may be all negative
(c) may be all non-negative
(d) cannot be predicted
This question was addressed to me at a job interview.
The origin of the question is System of Particles topic in portion System of Particles and Rotational Motion of Physics – Class 11
Select the correct answer from above options
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Editor Staff answered 1 year ago
Correct option is (c) may be all non-negative
Easiest explanation: For an object to have the x-coordinate of its centre of mass, there should be particles on both the negative and positive coordinates of the plane for the sum to be zero. However, for 1-dimensional particles that all lie on the y-axis symmetric about the x-axis, the x-coordinate is zero – which is neither positive nor negative, i.e., non-negative.
