Reduced Mass Calculator

Formula

The formula to calculate the reduced mass is:

\[ M = \frac{m₁ \times m₂}{m₁ + m₂} \]

Where:

\( M \) is the reduced mass.
\( m₁ \) is the mass of object 1.
\( m₂ \) is the mass of object 2.

What is Reduced Mass?

The reduced mass of two objects is a way to simplify a physics problem of two masses using one mass instead. As shown by the equation above, this value is simply a ratio of the product of the masses to the sum of the masses.

Example Calculation

Consider an example where:

Mass of Object 1 (m₁): 5 kg
Mass of Object 2 (m₂): 10 kg

Using the formula to calculate the Reduced Mass:

\[ M = \frac{5 \times 10}{5 + 10} = \frac{50}{15} = 3.33 \text{ kg} \]

This means that the reduced mass for this example is approximately 3.33 kg.