Answer to Question #87733 in Classical Mechanics for Sridhar

Question

The number of degrees of freedom of a rigid body in n- dimensional space is

Answer 1

A rigid body in n- dimensional space has n translational degrees of freedom and

$$\frac{n(n-1)}{2}$$

rotational degrees of freedom. 

The number of degrees of freedom of a rigid body in n- dimensional space is

$$n+\frac{n(n-1)}{2}=\frac{n(n+1)}{2}$$