
What would fall quicker, a feather or a hammer? Why?
Answer
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Hint: Free fall is defined in Newtonian physics as the motion of a body in which gravity is the sole force acting on it. A body in free fall has no force acting on it under general relativity, where gravity is reduced to a space-time curvature. In the technical definition of the phrase "free fall," an item may or may not be falling down in the common sense. Although an item travelling upwards is not generally regarded to be falling, it is said to be in free fall if it is simply subjected to the force of gravity.
Complete step by step answer:
Surprisingly, the mass of an object has no bearing on how fast it falls. Instead, gravitational acceleration, a characteristic of gravity, determines its speed. This indicates that, regardless of mass, any object's downward speed will rise by in one second due to gravity. However, you don't need to be a physicist to figure out that if you drop a feather and a hammer at the same moment, the hammer will fall quicker. Both objects accelerate at the same rate due to gravity, but another element comes into play: air resistance. The feather is slowed by the air and glides down gently, but the hammer lands flat on its face.
Let's pretend you're on the Moon. Which would hit the ground first if you dropped a hammer and a feather from the same height? Commander David Scott gave a live demonstration for the television cameras at the end of the last Apollo 15 Moonwalk. He held out a geology hammer and a feather and simultaneously dropped them in front of almost 600 million people watching on live television.
So, why do feathers fall slowly in most cases?
The answer is air resistance.
Note: We have enough oxygen to breathe on this planet. As things descend through the air, friction produces air resistance, which can cause them to slow down as they fall. Different forms are affected differently by air resistance.
There was no air resistance because the Apollo crew was practically in a vacuum, thus the feather dropped at the same pace as the hammer.
This is exactly what Galileo had discovered hundreds of years before: all objects launched at the same time, regardless of mass, fall at the same pace. The outcome was anticipated by a well-established theory, which was comforting for the Apollo team because their return voyage from the Moon hinged on this theory's accuracy!
Complete step by step answer:
Surprisingly, the mass of an object has no bearing on how fast it falls. Instead, gravitational acceleration, a characteristic of gravity, determines its speed. This indicates that, regardless of mass, any object's downward speed will rise by in one second due to gravity. However, you don't need to be a physicist to figure out that if you drop a feather and a hammer at the same moment, the hammer will fall quicker. Both objects accelerate at the same rate due to gravity, but another element comes into play: air resistance. The feather is slowed by the air and glides down gently, but the hammer lands flat on its face.
Let's pretend you're on the Moon. Which would hit the ground first if you dropped a hammer and a feather from the same height? Commander David Scott gave a live demonstration for the television cameras at the end of the last Apollo 15 Moonwalk. He held out a geology hammer and a feather and simultaneously dropped them in front of almost 600 million people watching on live television.
So, why do feathers fall slowly in most cases?
The answer is air resistance.
Note: We have enough oxygen to breathe on this planet. As things descend through the air, friction produces air resistance, which can cause them to slow down as they fall. Different forms are affected differently by air resistance.
There was no air resistance because the Apollo crew was practically in a vacuum, thus the feather dropped at the same pace as the hammer.
This is exactly what Galileo had discovered hundreds of years before: all objects launched at the same time, regardless of mass, fall at the same pace. The outcome was anticipated by a well-established theory, which was comforting for the Apollo team because their return voyage from the Moon hinged on this theory's accuracy!
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