Question
You drop ball of varying mass, foam ball, soccer ball, and a bowling ball, from the same height on Earth. What does this tell us about the force of gravity on objects with different masses? The acceleration due to gravity is the same/ different for objects with different masses.
Answers
GPT-4o mini
When you drop objects of varying mass—such as a foam ball, a soccer ball, and a bowling ball—from the same height on Earth, you observe that they all fall at the same rate regardless of their mass. This demonstrates a fundamental principle of physics: the acceleration due to gravity is the same for all objects in free fall, regardless of their mass.
This means that the acceleration due to gravity (approximately \(9.81 \, \text{m/s}^2\) on the surface of the Earth) is constant for all objects, and it does not change with mass.
In conclusion, the experiments with falling objects indicate that the force of gravity acts equally on all masses; however, heavier objects do experience a greater gravitational force (since force is mass times acceleration, \( F = mg \)), but this is balanced out by their greater inertia. Thus, they all accelerate at the same rate when in free fall.
This means that the acceleration due to gravity (approximately \(9.81 \, \text{m/s}^2\) on the surface of the Earth) is constant for all objects, and it does not change with mass.
In conclusion, the experiments with falling objects indicate that the force of gravity acts equally on all masses; however, heavier objects do experience a greater gravitational force (since force is mass times acceleration, \( F = mg \)), but this is balanced out by their greater inertia. Thus, they all accelerate at the same rate when in free fall.