Why do objects in free fall have no weight?

Question

A. They have no friction force acting upon them.

B. They are accelerating too fast for weight to be measured accurately.

C. They have no gravitational force acting upon them.

D. They have no normal force acting upon them.

Answer 1

The correct answer is:

D. They have no normal force acting upon them.

In free fall, an object is in a state of free fall due to gravity alone, and it is not in contact with any surface that would exert a normal force on it. Weight is the force due to gravity acting on an object, but when in free fall, the object does not exert a force on a surface (such as the ground or a scale), so there is no normal force to counteract the gravitational force. This is why, during free fall, we perceive that the object effectively has no weight.