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How Is Acceleration Related To Gravity

Acceleration due to gravity causes all objects to fall at 9.8 m/s^2, though air resistance can cause objects to fall at different rates and reach a terminal velocity where air resistance equals gravitational force; free fall only occurs in a vacuum with no air resistance, while skydivers experience significant air resistance so are not truly in free fall. Gravity provides the downward force that accelerates objects, while mass determines how easily an object can be accelerated by a given force.

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Lourdes Rocy
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24 views

How Is Acceleration Related To Gravity

Acceleration due to gravity causes all objects to fall at 9.8 m/s^2, though air resistance can cause objects to fall at different rates and reach a terminal velocity where air resistance equals gravitational force; free fall only occurs in a vacuum with no air resistance, while skydivers experience significant air resistance so are not truly in free fall. Gravity provides the downward force that accelerates objects, while mass determines how easily an object can be accelerated by a given force.

Uploaded by

Lourdes Rocy
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How is acceleration related to gravity?

velocity changes. An object accelerates when the forces on it are unbalanced. As you know, gravity exerts a downward, unbalanced force on falling objects. So, objects accelerate as they fall. A table tennis ball and a golf ball fall to the ground at the same rate. This is because acceleration due to gravity is the same for all objects. How can this be? Acceleration depends on both force and mass. A heavier object is pulled by a greater gravitational force than a lighter object. But a heavier object is also harder to accelerate because of its larger mass. The extra mass of the heavy object exactly makes up for its larger gravitational force. Falling objects accelerate toward Earth at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second. This is written

as 9.8 m/s2. For every second that an object falls, its downward velocity increases by 9.8 m/s.

Acceleration is how quickly

When does acceleration stop?


Suppose you to drop two sheets of paper-one crumpled into a tight ball and the other kept flat. What would happen? You would find that the flat piece of paper would fall more slowly than the crumpled piece of paper. Air resistance is the force that acts against the motion of objects through air. How much air resistance acts on an object depends on the size, shape, and speed of the object. The upward force of air resistance continues to increase as an object falls. It gets larger until it is equal to the downward force of gravity. At this point, the net force is 0 N, and the object stops accelerating. The object then falls at a constant velocity called the terminal velocity. If an object falls for a long enough time, it will reach a terminal velocity.

When does free fall occur?


Often you will hear about a sky diver who is in free fall. This isnt the correct use of this term. An object is in free fall if the only force acting on the object is gravity. A sky diver has a large air resistance as she falls. Because air resistance is a force, free fall can occur only when there is no air. There is no air, or any other matter, in a vacuum. Vacuum chambers are containers from which most of the air has been removed.

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