Does the earth accelerate towards the rock?

Question

a.no, the earth doesn't accelerate towards or away from the rock.

b.yes, but because the earth's mass and inertia are so big, the acceleration is so small, we can't really see it

c.the earth would accelerate up towards the rock if it weren't already accelerating towards a rock falling downward on the other side of the world

Answer 1

The best answer is:

b. yes, but because the earth's mass and inertia are so big, the acceleration is so small, we can't really see it.

According to Newton's law of universal gravitation, every mass attracts every other mass with a force that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. While it is true that the Earth does experience a gravitational attraction toward the rock, the Earth's immense mass means that this acceleration is negligible compared to the acceleration of the rock. Thus, we often do not perceive the effect of the Earth's acceleration toward smaller objects.