?
This is a generalization of the discrete formula for center of mass,
, where
. Think of the continuous mass distribution of being made up of an infinite number of infinitesimally small pieces (one of the basic ideas of calculus), each of mass
. When you turn a discrete sum into an integral, the
's become
and the sum turns into an integral. The denominator is
which is just the total mass
; it's the sum of all the infinitesimal pieces
.