Question

What is the use of the center of mass? How does his relate to if something is going to tip over or not?

Answer 1

In rotational dynamics, center of mass plays an important role. For example, if a body is rigid, so instead of considering its all particles motion to describe the rotation, we can just use a single point called as its center of mass, and that would be suffcient for entire body.

As an example, if you want to hang a big picture frame on a wall, if you hang it from its center of mass, it will be hanged up perfectly without tilting or making an angle. But if you do this at some other point, then the frame will get tilted, will not be straight.

For objects to tip over, those which are lying near some table, if their center of mass is beyond the edge, then they will tip over and fall, whereas if their center of mass lies on the table, they will not get tip over unless some external force is applied.