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Free Fall

An object is in free fall if the only force acting on it is gravity. All freely falling objects near the Earth's surface accelerate at approximately 9.81 m/s2 downward, regardless of their mass or initial velocity. Air resistance is ignored in free fall problems. Galileo showed that heavy and light objects fall at the same rate in the absence of air resistance, contradicting Aristotle. Kinematic equations can be used to solve free fall problems by setting the initial velocity (vi) to 0 and using an acceleration (a) of -9.81 m/s2.

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Felix Robert Valenzuela
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20 views

Free Fall

An object is in free fall if the only force acting on it is gravity. All freely falling objects near the Earth's surface accelerate at approximately 9.81 m/s2 downward, regardless of their mass or initial velocity. Air resistance is ignored in free fall problems. Galileo showed that heavy and light objects fall at the same rate in the absence of air resistance, contradicting Aristotle. Kinematic equations can be used to solve free fall problems by setting the initial velocity (vi) to 0 and using an acceleration (a) of -9.81 m/s2.

Uploaded by

Felix Robert Valenzuela
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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An object that the

only force acting on Mr. P

it is gravity
Gravity accelerates all objects down regardless if they are going
up, going down, stopped, or going sideways. An object that the
only force acting on it is gravity is in
Free Fall.
An object is in free fall if the only force acting on it is gravity,
doesn’t happen though, near surface of earth there is air resistance!
An airplane can simulate free fall
by flying in a parabolic path
All freely falling objects
accelerate at 9.81 m/s2 near the
surface of the earth

a  9.81 m / s 2

a  g
All are pulled down at the same
rate regardless of their mass and
direction of motion.
( Ignoring air resistance )
Which falls faster without
air resistance?

Without air resistance With air resistance


Galileo dropped a
cannonball and a musket ball
simultaneously from a tower, and
observed that they both hit the
ground at the same time. This
contradicted Aristotle's long-
accepted idea that heavier
objects fell faster.

http://faculty.rmwc.edu/tmichalik/movies/tree.mpeg
To solve free fall
problems use the
kinematic equations and:
1. a = -9.8 m/s2
2. Dropped let vi =0
3. At top let vf =0

1. vf = vi + at
2. vf 2 = vi 2 + 2ad
3. d = vi t + 1
2 at 2
4. d = 1
2 (vf + vi ) t
All of the following are in free fall, on the way
down, up, or sideways
Note the lengths of the velocity and acceleration vectors at different
times. (The upward and downward paths of the ball are horizontally
Displaced for illustration purposes.)
For an object thrown straight up at 20 m/s
link

20 m/s
Velocity vs. Time Acceleration vs. Time

-20 m/s
-9.81 m/s2

-30 m/s
The slope of a velocity vs time
graph for an object in free fall
near the surface of the earth
will always be -9.81 m/s2.
EXAMPLE:
An apple falls from rest from a tree and
takes 1.5 seconds to reach the floor:
a) How high up did it fall from?
b) What is its velocity just before it hits the ground?

a = - 9.81 m/s2
A flea can jump to a vertical height of 4cm, find:
a. The initial velocity the pest leaves the ground
b. The time the flea takes to reach its maximum height

v f 2  vi 2  2ad
0  vi 2  2(9.8m / s 2 )(.04m)
vi  .88m / s

v f  vi  at
0  .88m / s  (9.8m / s 2 )t
t  .09sec
"A ball is thrown straight upward from the top of a cliff with an
initial velocity of 15 m/sec. Assuming the ball just misses the edge
of the cliff on its way down, how fast is it going just before it hits the
ground which is 35 m below the ball's starting point?"

35 m

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