CHEM 214 Lecture 13: Lecture 13

• School: McGill University
• Department: Chemistry
• Course: CHEM 214
• Professor: Anthony Mittermaier

Document Summary

Consider a mass (m) in a circular orbit of radius r around a fixed point. The angle between r(0) and r(t) is theta. The angular velocity is given by how quickly the angle changes with time, the time- derivative of angle. The linear velocity is tagental to the circle with magnitude (instantaneous velocity): bigger the radius, bigger the velocity of the object. The linear momentum is as usual, p = mv. The angular momentum, l, (which appears over and over in qm) is given by the cross- product of the radius of the orbit and linear momentum (which is tagental). Angular momentum is a vector, and is perpendicular to both r and p. we can think of it as a vector that points along the axis of rotation (e. g. wheel) The direction of l is given by the right-hand rule (up or down).