Centroids

Amy Lee, RHS ‘07

The centroid is basically the center of gravity of any object. It is also known as the point within that object from which the force of gravity appears to act. The center of gravity of any object is the point around which the moments of the gravitational forces completely cancel one another. The moment is a quantity that represents the magnitude of force applied to a rotational system at a distance from the axis of rotation. The Archimedes Lemma states basically, that if an object is split into two lesser objects, the center of mass of the combined object will be found upon a line segment that joins the centers of mass of the two lesser objects. To find the centroid of the vertices of any triangle, the intersection of each of the medians of the triangle can be found. Centroids also have certain fundamental properties, the translation property, the rotation property and properties of symmetry.