Moment (mathematics)

In mathematics, a moment is a specific quantitative measure, used in both mechanics and statistics, of the shape of a set of points. If the points represent mass, then the zeroth moment is the total mass, the first moment divided by the total mass is the center of mass, and the second moment is the rotational inertia. If the points represent probability density, then the zeroth moment is the total probability (i.e. one), the first moment is the mean, the second central moment is the variance, the third moment is the skewness, and the fourth moment (with normalization and shift) is the kurtosis. The mathematical concept is closely related to the concept of moment in physics.