conservation of angular momentum

American  

noun

Physics.

1. the principle that the total angular momentum of a system has constant magnitude and direction if the system is subjected to no external force.

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Example Sentences

That’s because according to the conservation of angular momentum, it is impossible for an object that is not spinning to suddenly rotate without external influence.

From Scientific American • Jul. 24, 2023

Because of conservation of angular momentum, a physics principle, any object that is spinning will spin faster if it suddenly shrinks in width.

From Salon • Feb. 1, 2022

From there, a pebble cloud will collapse, popping out planetesimals—plural, because the conservation of angular momentum spins out two or more dense, kilometer-scale bodies from the infalling material.

From Scientific American • Feb. 20, 2020

This is a lot shorter than the actual time Pluto takes to go around the Sun, but it gives you a sense of the kind of speeding up the conservation of angular momentum can produce.

From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016

As the gravitational collapse continued, the primordial galaxies spun increasingly faster, because of the conservation of angular momentum.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan