FREE FALL OR FREELY FALLING BODY

Does a stone fall faster than a feather? According to Aristotle, heavy bodies fall faster than light ones. Many people accepted his idea which was based on common sense

Galileo opposed Aristotles idea. He believed that heavy object falls as faster as light object.

Who do you think is right?

Things fall because of the force of gravity. When a falling object is free from air resistance and other forces except gravity, the object is said to be in a state of free fall.

This was proven in his dropping experiment at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He found out that the acceleration of the ball due to gravity is constant, which is calculated to be equal to 9.8 2, 980 cm/s2 and 32 ft/s2. m/s

For the values of g: if the motion of the object is downward the value of g is positive and upward motion as negative.

Christian Huygens, who invented the pendulum clock in 1656, was the first to measure g.
In general, the magnitude of the acceleration due to gravity decreases as you move farther from the center of the earth: 9.7804 m/s2 at the equator and 9.8321 m/s2 at the North and South poles.

Sample Problems:
1. A tilapia is dropped by a hovering eagle. How far will the fish fall in 2 s before the bird catches it again? Neglect air friction.

2. Scientists measure the height of lava fountain in a volcanic eruption by timing how long a bit of lava takes to fall from the greatest height. If a lump of lava in volcanic eruption took 5 s to fall, how high is the lava fountain?

3. A pitcher

tosses a baseball straight up, with an initial speed of 15 m/s. How long does it take to reach its highest point. How high does the ball rise above its release point? Note: Vf = 0 (speed at the highest point is zero)

4. A ball is thrown vertically upward with a velocity of 20 m/s. Determine the velocity after 1.5s and 3 s and up to what height it will rise?

5. A piece of stone is dropped from rest at a height of 50m above the ground. Find its velocity before it hits the ground.

6. How long will the stone in problem number 5 take to reach the ground?

7. A ball is thrown vertically downward with a speed of 10 m/s. Find its velocity after 2s.

8. A ball is thrown vertically upward with a speed of 20 m/s. (a) Find its velocity after 1.5s and 3s. (b) Up to

9. An object is dropped from the roof of a building and takes 5s to reach the ground. Find the height of the building in meters.

10. A stone is dropped from a cliff 490m above the ground. How long does it take to fall?

11. A stone was dropped from the top of the building 20 m high. a. How long will it take for the stone to reach the ground?

b. Find its velocity upon reaching the ground.

12. A body is dropped

and falls for 3s before it strikes the ground.

a. Find the velocity in

m/s when it hits the ground.

b. The height from

where it dropped in meters.

13.

An object is thrown vertically upward and is caught by the thrower after 3.2 seconds. How high did the ball rise?

How high does a bullet travel when it is fired vertically and strikes the ground at exactly 9 seconds. Determine also its initial velocity?

A ball falls freely from rest for 8 seconds. Calculate the stones velocity after 8 seconds. What is the stones displacement during this time?