|
| Gravity accelerating two
different-mass objects is easy to imagine
when they look alike, but what about when we
see feathers, papers and leaves obviously
falling slower than bowling balls? Counter to common misconception, this has nothing to do with the density of these lightweight objects, but rather how they interact with air. This can be proven when air is removed from a vacuum system in which we can observe equal gravitational acceleration.[2] |
To
illustrate, here are a feather and bearing
dropped
in normal atmospheric conditions and in a vacuum. Warning: abrupt noise in video <object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_XJcZ-KoL9o?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_XJcZ-KoL9o?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9ol |
By Ross MacDougall
Physics 103
Fall 2011
University of Alaska Fairbanks
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Effect of Gravity on Falling Objects