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Rolling Motion

There are two common ways to view rolling motion. Only one of them will work if the object rolling also slips a bit. Either one works when the rolling proceeds without slipping. The first way is to view the rolling object as if it is rotating about its own center of mass while that center of mass is also translating. This view will treat both rolling with or without slipping. The second view is to treat rolling as a pure rotation about the point of contact with the ground. In this view we do not add translational motion of the center of mass. Rather, it is a consequence of the rotation. Rolling motion can be seen in the graphic below.