SS Connections

The Center of Gravity is also called barycenter. In Greek the prefix "bary" means weight. The actual meaning of the word barycenter is “center of weight” or center of gravity. The simplest way to understand this expression and the concept behind it is to observe the experiment where a pasteboard triangle supported in a horizontal plane, standing on a vertical support placed under its center point. The triangle only remains in balanced and still after released from rest when supported by this point. The whole weight of the figure is supported by this point, as if it were concentrated in it. That is why we call that point the center of gravity, center of mass, or the barycenter.

Though Archimedes is the main one to have come up with the concept of the center of gravity he is not the only one to have contributed to the studies. Men such as Heron and Pappus also inputed and contributed to the theories and experiments on how to solve an equation to find the center of weight in an object. People like Heath and Duhem helped with the understanding of these concepts by putting them into more modern terms. Because Archimedes came up with the concept of the center of gravity, Greece is now the origin of the oldest documents dealing with center of gravity that gave theorectical results on the subject.