It two objects are thrown off a tall building and one is three times the mass of the other, do they hit the ground at the same time?
To determine if two objects of different masses, thrown off a tall building, hit the ground at the same time, we need to consider the concept of free fall and the role of mass in gravitational acceleration.
When objects fall freely under the influence of gravity, their acceleration due to gravity is the same, regardless of their mass. This means that the force exerted on an object due to gravity is directly proportional to its mass.
According to Newton's second law of motion (F = m · a), the force (F) on an object is equal to its mass (m) multiplied by its acceleration (a). In the case of free fall, the force is the force due to gravity (mg), and the acceleration is the acceleration due to gravity (g).
Since the mass cancels out in the equation (F = m · a), the acceleration due to gravity is constant for all objects near the Earth's surface and is approximately 9.8 meters per second squared (m/s^2). This means that the acceleration experienced by both objects will be the same.
Therefore, regardless of the objects' masses, they will hit the ground at the same time when freely falling from a tall building.