Acceleration Due

to
Gravity
 What is Gravity
An attractive
force between
objects of mass

Galileo Galilei
Sir Issac Newton

Albert Einstein
 FREE FALL
Objects in motion solely under the
influence of gravity are said to be
in FREE FALL. The objects can be
either dropped or thrown.
Falling Apples, Bullets, Cannon Balls,
Spitballs and your little brother jumping
out of the window are all objects under
free fall
Objects like Airplanes and Rockets are
not.
 Acceleration
Due to Gravity
“g”
“g” - A constant
acceleration due to
the attractive force
of gravity between
an object and the
Earth
The acceleration at the earth’s surface is a
constant 9.80 m/s2 toward the center of
the Earth.
For our purposes we will neglect air resistance
and small variations due to elevation and regional
average mass density variations of the Earth.

g = -9.80 m/s2 = -32.2 ft/s2

Negative sign indicates direction of the acceleration. In
physics down is negative and up is positive.
 Acceleration Due to Gravity
Equations
All kinematic equations can be used by
substituting g for a in any equation

• d = v1t + /2gt
1 2

v
• 2 2
= v 1 + 2gd
2

• v2 = v1 + gt