🌗 Reduced Mass Calculator
Enter two masses to calculate their reduced mass, a quantity used to simplify two-body problems in orbital mechanics, molecular vibration, and collision physics.
What is reduced mass?
The reduced mass is a mathematical trick that lets a two-body problem, like two objects orbiting each other or two atoms vibrating in a bond, be treated as a single equivalent one-body problem, greatly simplifying the physics.
The formula
Reduced mass is calculated as μ = (m1 × m2) ÷ (m1 + m2). Notice the reduced mass is always smaller than the lighter of the two masses, and when one mass is much larger than the other (like Earth versus a satellite), the reduced mass approaches the smaller mass almost exactly.
This concept applies broadly, from planetary orbital mechanics and binary star systems to diatomic molecule vibrational frequencies and particle scattering problems. This calculator is for general physics and chemistry education.