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Do heavier objects fall faster?

Heavier things have a greater gravitational force AND heavier things have a lower acceleration. It turns out that these two effects exactly cancel to make falling objects have the same acceleration regardless of mass.



No, in a vacuum or in the absence of air resistance, all objects fall at the same rate regardless of their mass. This principle was famously demonstrated by Galileo (and later by Apollo 15 astronauts on the Moon). Gravity accelerates all objects at approximately 9.8 m/s2 near the Earth's surface. The reason we often perceive heavier objects as falling faster is due to air resistance. A bowling ball and a feather fall differently because the feather's large surface area relative to its weight allows air molecules to push back against it more effectively. However, if you drop a 10lb lead ball and a 1lb lead ball, they will hit the ground at the exact same time because they are both dense enough that air resistance is negligible for their shapes. This counterintuitive fact is a cornerstone of classical mechanics, proving that the force of gravity is proportional to mass, but the resulting acceleration is constant.

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