Lesson of the Week: Rate of Acceleration

If you drop a brick and a feather at the same time off of a building, which would hit the ground first. Of course the brick wins that race. However, in a vaccuum, dropping the two obejects will have a different outcome. The two objects fall at the same rate and hit the gorund at the same time. Why is that?

How heavy an object is does not control how fast it falls in a airless environment. The scientist Galileo determined that objects on Earth have a constant rate of falling, called the rate of acceleration. This means that no matter how heavy an object is, it will fall at the same speed as any other object.

Now the trick is that the rate acceleration is dominant when there is no air in the equation. This is not the case on Earth. The reason a brick will appear to fall faster than a feather off the side of a building is because air creates an upward friction against objects. Now gravity will play a factor. Heavier objects can fight air friction easier than lighter ones because of the effect of gravity pulling them to the ground. The more mass an object has, the faster it falls in the real world.