The moment of inertia about an axis is . The parallel axis theorem states , where a is the perpendicular separation from a parallel axis through the centre of mass, and M is total mass.
Since , the density coefficient has units . The density-power cylindrical moment of inertia follows from cylindrical shells:For an offset pivot, the physical pendulum equation is . At small amplitude,For the minimum-period offset of a physical pendulum, minimizing is equivalent to minimizing . Its derivative vanishes atThe second derivative is positive. The period diverges as near zero and grows as for large offset, giving one minimum. This assumes the stated ideal pivot can pass inside the body; an externally constrained pivot would restrict the allowable a. [ref]
