Question

What type of motion is exhibited by a freely falling body?

Answer 1

Hint : When a body is falling freely it experiences only gravitational acceleration acting on it. This gravitational acceleration that acts on the body is also constant.

Complete step by step answer
When a body is falling freely, it experiences a force that attracts it towards the surface of the Earth. This will make the body accelerate towards the Earth. The value of this gravitational acceleration will be constant. Hence the body will be uniformly accelerated such that its velocity increases continuously however its acceleration will be constant. The acceleration is assumed to be constant in space and in time.
Hence the motion of a freely falling body is of the kind ‘uniformly accelerated motion’.

Note
Here we have assumed that the gravitational acceleration acting on a body will be constant however gravity changes with a change in height. At larger heights from the surface of the Earth, the gravity will be weaker since we are farther away from the surface of the Earth. However, this change is negligible for small heights from the surface of the Earth so we can discard its variation. We have also neglected air resistance that can act on an object since air drag will exert its own force on the object slowing it down. Air drag is the reason why light objects like feathers can’t fall to the surface of the Earth as quickly as a ball or a brick. In such cases, the motion of the feather cannot be considered as ‘uniformly accelerated motion’.