Chapter 7

Distributions and center of mass

7.1 Grade distributions

We would like to study the distribution of grades in two sections of a calculus course. A test was
given and graded out of a maximum of 40 points. Each section of the course has 96 students, so
that a total of 96 separate grades were recorded for each section. We would like to study how well
students did in this test, whether it was “easy” or “hard” and whether one section did better in
some sense than the other. How should we make this comparison? One simple device we could use
to compare the sections is the idea of an “average” grade.

7.1.1 Defining an average grade

Let N be the size of the class, and yk the grade of student k. Here k is the number of the student
from 1 to N, and yk takes any value between 0 and 40 points). Then the average grade Ȳ is
computed by adding up the scores of all students and dividing by the number of students as follows:
N
1 X
Ȳ = yk
N
k=1

For example, for a class of 96 students, we would have the sum

96
1 X
Ȳ = yk
96
k=1

(If we do this we get 26 for class 1 and 27 for class 2 out of 40 points.)

7.1.2 Fraction of students that scored a given grade

We might notice that some students got exactly the same grade. For example, there might be 3
students in the class who got 21/40 points. We could count up how many students got the same

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

grade xi , and call that number of students pi . The fraction of the class that scored grade xi is then
pi
.
N

These definitions suggest a slightly modified way of computing the average grade. Now we are
summing up how many students got each grade from 0 to 40, so our total is:

40
1 X
X̄ = xi pi .
N i=0
Of course, this should lead to the same result (X̄ = Ȳ )! We are just grouping the numbers in a
different way in our summation: not adding one student’s grade at a time, but rather adding the
number of students getting each grade value. This version is illuminating, because it generalizes to
many similar ideas that we will encounter in forming a mean or average (or, what turns out to be
equivalent, a center of mass.) We can rewrite the same average in the clearly related form:
40
X pi
X̄ = xi .
i=0
N

Since pi /N is a fraction, it follows that 0 ≤ pi /N ≤ 1. Indeed, it represents the fraction of students

in the class whose test score was xi . (We will see later that this fraction is related to the probability
of achieving the score xi in the given test.)
In a nutshell, the example above contains many of the essential ingredients that we will learn
to appreciate in a number of contexts: mass distributions, grade distributions, probability distribu-
tions, etc.

7.2 Frequency distribution

It is difficult to visualize all the data related to the student scores if we simply keep a list of all the
possible grades. One technique we could use is to “lump together” scores into various categories
(or “bins”) and compare these distributions. We might create a frequency distribution as follows:
the possible test scores might be divided into ranges of test scores in increments of 4 points: 0-4,
5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20, 21-24, 25-28, 29-32, 33-36, 37-40). We can count how many students scored
a total grade in each of these ranges.
We will now reinterpret our notation somewhat. We will refer to x̃i as the score (in the nearest
multiple of 4) and pi the number of students whose test score fell within the range represented by
x̃i . This means that we do not keep all the scores in their full accuracy, since we “round them” up
to the nearest multiple of four. (The notation x̃i is meant to remind us that we are approximating
the grade value.) Although we lose some detail in doing this (failing to distinguish between a 21
and a 22 or 23), we will get some insight and be able to more easily visualize the overall results of
the test.
Suppose we decide to group the scores into 10 “bins” or grade categories. In that case, the
index i takes on values i = 1, 2, . . . 10. For example, x̃3 represents all grades in the “bin” 9-12.

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

25.0 25.0
Class 2 grade distribution Class 2 grade distribution

mean mean

0.0
28.5 0.0
28.9
0.0 40.0 0.0 40.0

Figure 7.1: Distributions of grades on a test written by two sections of Math103.

A plot of pi against x̃i is called a frequency distribution. There are several ways of plotting such
a distribution. We might draw a bar graph as shown in Figure 7.1, where the results of the two
sections are compared. Columns 1 and 2 of the table below list the values for the distribution of
grades in class 1.
If the class consists of a total of N students, then it follows that
10
X
N= pi .
i=1

This is just saying that the sum of the number of students in every one of the categories has to add
up to the total class size.
We can use our frequency distributions to compare the performance of the two classes. One
way of doing this is to compare the numbers of students in each grade category. For example, we
might notice that more students in class 2 achieved the highest grades, or that the distribution in
class 1 is broader, meaning that the range of abilities of the students is more varied in that class,
with more students on the low end of the distribution. We could also say that both classes appear
to consist of two distinct groups; this is shown by the two peaks in each case, though the trend is
more pronounced in class 2.

7.2.1 Average/mean of the distribution

The frequency distribution can also be used to compute an average value: each (approximate) grade
value x̃i is achieved by pi students, which is a fraction (pi /N) of the whole class. When we form
the multiple (pi /N)x̃i , we assign a “weight” to each of the categories according to the proportion
of the class that was in that category. (The terminology weighted average is sometimes used.)

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

We define the mean or average grade in the distribution by (M is the number of bins)

M
X pi
x̄ = x̃i .
i=1
N

An equivalent way of expressing the mean (average) is:

M PM
1 X x̃i pi
x̄ = x̃i pi = Pi=1
M
N i=1 i=1 pi

The sum in the denominator of this last fraction is simply the total class size since

M
X
N= pi .
i=1

We have written this expression above so that later similar expressions will look familiar.
In the table, we show steps in the calculation of the mean grade for class 1. A similar calculation
was done for class 2. The two results are shown on the graphs in Figure 7.2. We observe that the
mean grade in section 1 is 27.25 and in section 2 it is 28.9, suggesting that “on average”, the students
did a little better in the second class, or that section 2 has slightly stronger students.

P P P
i grade x̃i number pi pi x̃i pi (1/N) x̃i pi
0 0 0 0 0.0 0.0
1 4 0 0 0.0 0.0
2 8 0 0 0.0 0.0
3 12 1 1 12 0.125
4 16 6 7 108 1.125
5 20 14 21 388 4.04
6 24 20 41 868 9.04
7 28 20 61 1428 14.87
8 32 21 82 2100 21.87
9 36 11 93 2496 26
10 40 3 96 2616 27.25

7.2.2 Cumulative distribution

There are other ways of describing the performance of the class. For example, we could calculate a
“running total” as shown on figure 7.3, where we plot for each grade category, the total number of
students whose grade was somewhere below that level.

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

100.0 cumulative grade distribution 100.0 cumulative grade distribution

contribution to mean contribution to mean

grade distribution grade distribution

0.0 0.0
0.0 40.0 0.0 40.0

Figure 7.2: Same as in Figure 7.1, but showing the superimposed cumulative distributions.

We define the cumulative distribution, Fi to be:

i
X
Fi = pk .
k=1

Of course, when we add up all the way to the last category, we arrive at the total number of
students in the class (assuming each student wrote the test and received a grade). Thus
m
X
Fm = pk = N.
k=1

(That’s because each student has been counted in one of the categories corresponding to the grade
he or she achieved.) Another way of saying the same thing is that
m
X pk
= 1.
N
k=1

In Figure 7.3 we show the cumulative distribution, i.e. we plot x̃i vs Fi .

7.2.3 The median

We can use the cumulative distribution and its features to come up with new ways of summarizing
the distribution or comparing the performance of two sections. Suppose we subdivide a given class
into exactly two equal groups: the “top students”, and the “weaker” students. Then there would

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

100.0 100.0

class 1 cumulative distribution class 2 cumulative distribution

50% 50%

50% 50%

median median
0.0 0.0
0.0 40.0 0.0 40.0

Figure 7.3: The cumulative distributions are used to determine a median grade for each section.

be some grade that was achieved (or surpassed) by the top half of the class, but not by the weaker
half. We call that grade the median of the distribution.
It is easy to find that median grade using a cumulative distribution. We must ask what grade
level was attained precisely by 50% of the class. To determine that level, we draw a horizontal line
corresponding to N/2 and read off the grade that corresponds to this value on the graph of F . In
section 1 the median is 25.5 whereas in section 2 it is 27. We observe that the median is not equal
to the mean computed earlier. However, at least in this example, the trend is conserved, i.e. section
2 shows a better performance on the test than section 1.

7.3 Mass distribution

The ideas described in our example of test scores are quite general, and apply to many different
settings. In this section, we consider the distribution of mass along a one-dimensional rod or wire.
We are interested in characterizing how the mass is “lumped together” or “spread out”, and where
it is “on average”. We will begin with a simple discrete example of a collection of objects with
masses and positions.

7.3.1 Beads on a wire

In Figure 7.4 we see a number of beads, i = 1 . . . n (there are five beads so that n = 5) distributed
along a thin wire. Each bead has a certain position (that we will think of as the value of xi ) and a
mass that we will call pi . We will think of this arrangement as a discrete mass distribution: both
the masses of the beads, and their positions are of interest to us. We would like to describe some
properties of this distribution so that we can compare two different arrangements, for example.

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

p p2 p p5
1 4

x x2 x 4 x 5
1

Figure 7.4: This picture is meant to represent a discrete distribution of masses along a (one dimen-
sional) wire. We later compare this to a continuous mass distribution in 1D.

(Remark: This example will be similar to the one we discussed in the previous section: instead of
“bins” we have “beads”. Instead of test scores we have positions, and instead of number of student
scores in each bin we have the mass of each bead.)
The total mass of the beads, M, is just the sum of the individual masses, so that
n
X
M= pi .
i=1

We might also say that when we add up the fraction of the total mass represented by each bead
over all the beads, we get 1, i.e.
n
X pi
=1
i=1
M

We might also be interested in the “center of mass” of the distribution, which is, simply put,
the average x coordinate. We form this average as before:
1
x̄ = (p1 x1 + p2 x2 + . . . p5 x5 )
M
Then, in general (for arbitrary n), we define the center of mass of the distribution as follows:

7.3.2 Center of mass of a discrete distribution

The center of mass x̄ of a mass distribution is given by:

n
1 X
x̄ = xi pi .
M i=1

This can also be written in the form

Pn
xi pi
x̄ = Pi=1
n
i=1 pi

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

It is no coincidence that this “average x value” is identical in calculation to the mean or average
grade we discussed in the previous section! The concepts are, in fact identical, provided we make
the correspondence between grades and placements, number of students and bead mass described
above.

7.3.3 Continuous mass distribution

Now suppose that we have a continuous mass distribution, i.e. a changing density. For example,
the bar in Figure 7.5 has a density that varies along its length. The portion at the left is made of
lighter material, or has a lower density than the portions further to the right. (The density of the
material along the length of the bar is shown in the graph.) How would we find the total mass and
the center of mass?
We are already familiar with the first part of the question, since we have dealt with densities in
a previous chapter: Let us imagine dividing up the bar into small pieces of length ∆x as shown in
Figure 7.5. The coordinates of the endpoints of those pieces are then
xk = k∆x
and the corresponding masses of each of the pieces are approximately
pi = p(xi )∆x.
The total mass is then a sum of masses of all the pieces, and, as we have seen in an earlier chapter,
this sum will approach the integral Z L
M= p(x)dx
0
as we make the size of the pieces smaller.
We can also define a center of mass for the continuous mass density. By analogy, we get
n
1 X
x̄ = xi p(xi )∆x.
M i=1
As ∆x → dx, this becomes an integral.

7.3.4 Center of mass of a continuous distribution

We define the center of mass of the continuous mass distribution as follows:

L
1
Z
x̄ = xp(x)dx .
M 0

We can also write this in the form

RL
xp(x)dx
x̄ = R0 L .
0
p(x)dx

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

7.3.5 Example

∆x

mass distribution
p(x) p p p 3 ... p
1 2 n

x x x ... xn
x 1 2 3

Figure 7.5: Left: Continuous mass distribution in Example 7.3.5. Right: the discretized approxi-
mation of this same distribution. The finite sums applicable to discrete distributions will become
integrals when the size, ∆x, of the pieces shrinks to zero.

A long thin bar of length L is made of material whose density varies along the length of the bar.
Let x be distance from one end of the bar. Suppose that the mass density is given by

ρ(x) = ax 0 ≤ x ≤ L

(a) Find the total mass of the bar.

Solution

¿From our previous discussions in a preceding chapter, we may remember that the total mass of
the bar is Z L L
ax2  aL2
M= ax dx = =
0 2 0 2

(b) Find the average mass density along the bar.

Solution

The average mass density along the bar is computed just as one would compute the average value
of a function: integrate the function over an interval and divide by the length of the interval. Thus

1 L aL
Z
ρ̄ = ρ(x) dx =
L 0 2
where we have used part (a) for the integral.
(c) Find the center of mass of the bar.

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

Solution

The center of mass of the bar is

RL L
L
xp(x) dx 1 a x3 
Z
0 2
x̄ = = ax dx =
M M 0 M 3 0

2a L3 2
x̄ = = L
aL 3
2 3
(d) Where along the length of the bar should you cut to get two pieces of equal mass?

Solution

Suppose we cut at some position x = s. Then let

Z s
as2
I1 = p(x) dx =
0 2
so
L
1
Z
I2 = p(x) dx = a(L2 − s2 )
s 2
are the two masses of the portions of the bar before and after this cut. We equate these and solve
for s:

1 2 1
as = a(L2 − s2 ),
2 2
as = aL2 − as2 ,
2

2as2 = aL2 ,
√
1 2
s= √ L= L.
2 2
√
Thus, the bar should be cut at x = ( 2/2)L.
Remark: the position that subdivides the mass into two equal pieces is analogous to the grade
that subdivides a class into “top” and “other” students. In other words, this is example is related
conceptually to the idea of a median.

7.4 Physical interpretation of the center of mass

The center of mass has a physical interpretation for a real mass distribution. Loosely speaking, it
is the position at which the mass “balances” without rotating to the left or right. The analogy with
children sitting on a teeter-totter is relevant: many children may sit along the length of the frame of
a teeter totter, but if they distribute themselves in a way that the center of mass is at the fulcrum
of the teeter totter, they will remain precariously balanced (until one of them fidgets or gets off!).

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

Notice that both the mass and the position of each child is important - a light child sitting on the
very edge of the teeter totter can balance a heavier child sitting closer to the fulcrum (middle). The
center of mass need not be the same as the median position. (However, for symmetric distributions,
the median and the mean are the same.)

m 1 m 2 m 3

x x x x 3
1 2

Figure 7.6: The center of mass of a distribution is the position on which the given mass distribution
would balance.

In physics, we speak of the “moment of mass” of a distribution about a point. This quantity is
related to the tendency of the mass to contribute a torque, i.e. to make the object rotate. Suppose
we are interested in a particular point of reference x. The moment of mass of each of the beads
relative to point x is given by the product of the mass and its distance away from the point - as
with the teeter totter, beads farther away will contribute more torque than beads closer to point x,
and heavier beads (i.e. greater mass) will contribute more torque than lighter beads. For example,
mass 1 contributes an amount m1 (x − x1 ) to the total moment of mass of the distribution about
the point x. Altogether the moment of mass of the distribution about the point x is defined as
n
X
M1 (x) = mi (x − xi ).
i=1

The center of mass is a special point x̄ such that the moment of mass about that point is zero.
(Loosely speaking the tendency to rotate to the left or the right are the same: thus the distribution
would be balanced if it “rested on that point”.)
Thus, we identify the center of mass as the point at which

M1 (x̄) = 0

or
n
X
mi (x̄ − xi ) = 0.
i=1

Now expanding the sum, we rewrite the above as

n
X n
X
( mi x̄) − ( mi xi ) = 0,
i=1 i=1

n
X n
X
x̄ mi − ( mi xi ) = 0.
i=1 i=1

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

But we already know that the first summation above is just the total mass, so that
n
X
x̄M − ( mi xi ) = 0,
i=1

so, taking the second term to the other side and dividing by M leads to
n
1 X
x̄ = mi xi .
M i=1

We have recovered precisely the definition of the center of mass or “average x coordinate”.

Example

A semicircle shape of uniform thickness, shown in Figure 7.7, is balanced along its horizontal edge.
Find the coordinate c̄ at which the shape balances.

y
y= 9 − x 2

Figure 7.7: A semicircular shape.

Solution

The semicircle is one quarter of a circle of radius 3. Its edge is described by the equation
√
y = f (x) = 9 − x2 .

The mass of this shape is “distributed” along the x axis precisely as if it were a 1 dimensional
rod whose density varies with position according to the function f : i.e. if we cut the shape at
increments of ∆x along the x axis, we get a collection of pieces whose mass is each proportional to
f (x)∆x. The total mass of the shape is thus
Z 3 Z 3 √
M= f (x) dx = 9 − x2 dx
0 0

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Math 103 Notes Chapter 7

Once we compute the integral

Z 3 Z 3 √
I= xf (x) dx = x 9 − x2 dx
0 0

we obtain an average x coordinate:

I
x̄ = .
M
(This is the x coordinate of the center of mass.)
It is evident that the mass is proportional to the area of one quarter of a circle of radius 3:
1 9
M = π(3)2 = π.
4 4
(We could also see this by performing a trigonometric substitution integral.) The second integral
can be done by simple substitution: Consider
Z 3 Z 3 √
I= xf (x) dx = x 9 − x2 dx.
0 0

Let u = 9−x . Then du = −2x dx. The endpoints are converted as follows: x = 0 ⇒ u = 9−02 = 9
2

and x = 3 ⇒ u = 9 − 32 = 0 so that we get the integral

Z 0
√ 1
I= u du.
9 −2
We can reverse the endpoints if we switch the sign, and this leads to
   3/2  9
1 9 1/2 1 u
Z

I= u du = .
2 0 2 3/2 0
Since 93/2 = 33 , we get I = (33 )/3 = 32 = 9. Thus the x coordinate of the center of mass is
I 9 4
x̄ = = = .
M (9/4)π π

We can similarly find the y coordinate of the center of mass: To do so, we would express the
boundary of the shape in the form x = f (y) and integrate to find
Z 3
ȳ = yf (y) dy.
0
p
For the semicircle, y 2 + x2 = 9 so x = f (y) = 9 − y 2 . Thus
Z 3 p
ȳ = y 9 − y 2 dy.
0

This integral looks identical to the one we wrote down for x̄. Thus, based on this similarity (or
based on the symmetry of the problem we will find that
4
ȳ = .
π

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