How does mass effect a free falling object?
I was thinking that if the mass is greater then object would have a higher acceleration because due to it's weight it would have less drag on it from the air. Something of that sort. Could someone else this to me please.
I do not expect that the question wants you to consider drag of the air. They probably want you to answer that there is no effect at all because all masses will accelerate at the same rate due to gravity.
OK, thank you :) When I was searching on the internet, it said that one earth the acceleration of all objects would be 9.81 m/s/s. When I did my experiment my reults were completely wrong so I need to explain why it should be 9.81 m/s/s. How was the constant derived?
The constant was derived by measurement.
OK. Thank you :)
Certainly! Mass does indeed have an effect on the motion of a free-falling object. Let me explain it to you.
When an object is in free fall, it means that it is only influenced by the force of gravity. The acceleration of a free-falling object is given by the equation F = ma, where F is the force acting on the object, m is its mass, and a is its acceleration.
In this case, the force acting on the object is the force of gravity, which can be calculated using the formula F = mg, where g is the acceleration due to gravity (which is approximately 9.8 m/s^2 on the surface of the Earth).
Now, let's consider two objects with different masses falling in the same gravitational field. If we rearrange the equation F = mg to solve for acceleration, we get a = F/m.
Since the force of gravity acting on both objects is the same (F = mg), we can see that the acceleration of the objects is inversely proportional to their mass. In other words, the object with a larger mass will have a smaller acceleration, while the object with a smaller mass will have a larger acceleration.
This understanding may seem counterintuitive to your initial thought. You mentioned that a heavier object would experience less drag due to its weight, leading to higher acceleration. However, it's important to note that in the absence of air resistance, the acceleration due to gravity is the same for all objects regardless of their mass.
The effect of mass on acceleration only becomes apparent when other forces, such as air resistance, come into play. In such cases, heavier objects will have a greater resistance to being affected by these forces compared to lighter objects.
So, in summary, mass does affect a free-falling object, but when considering only the force of gravity, all objects experience the same acceleration regardless of their mass.