I think the general ontological category for center-of-mass is “derived fact”. I’d put energy calculations about an object in the same category.
If the particles in the object contain 1000 bits of information, then the combined system of the object and it’s center of mass contains exactly 1000 bits of information. The center-of-mass doesn’t tell you anything new about the object, it’s just a way of measuring something about it.
Or instead of bits of information, think about it in terms of particle positions and velocities. If you have an N-particle system, and you know where N-1 particles and the center of mass are, then you can figure out where the last particle is.
I think the general ontological category for center-of-mass is “derived fact”. I’d put energy calculations about an object in the same category.
If the particles in the object contain 1000 bits of information, then the combined system of the object and it’s center of mass contains exactly 1000 bits of information. The center-of-mass doesn’t tell you anything new about the object, it’s just a way of measuring something about it.
Or instead of bits of information, think about it in terms of particle positions and velocities. If you have an N-particle system, and you know where N-1 particles and the center of mass are, then you can figure out where the last particle is.