If you drop an 8 pound bowling ball and a 15 pound bowling ball from a roof will they fall at the same pace.?

Question

If you drop an 8 pound bowling ball and a 15 pound bowling ball from a roof at the same exact time will they fall at exactly the same pace. If so what is the speed of gravity?

Answer 1

On earth there are two gravitational forces acting on your bowling balls: (1) the gravitational force of the earth at 9.81 m/sec^2, and (2) the gravitational force of the bowling ball, which would be an extremely small number.

So, in a vacuum, the larger ball would theoretically fall at a slightly higher rate than the larger ball, but I doubt you could measure the difference unless you were dropping them from 100 km up, because the mass of the bowling balls is infinitely small compared to the earth (swbarnes2 said it was 500 bizillion times - that's probably pretty close!). Ignoring the negligible mass of the bowling balls, the velocity of a falling object would be 9.81 m/s after one second and19.62 m/s after two seconds, etc.

But on earth we have an atmosphere and that causes resistance through aerodynamic drag. So we have a combination of air resistance and gravitational pull that will affect the rate that the balls will fall.

That brings up the requirement for both your bowling balls to be of the same density, have the same coefficient of drag, and fall from the same roof. You didn't specify that in your question, but let's assume they are.

In science and engineering, we like to take these problems to the extreme (nth degree) to make it simple and easily understood. Let's say one of the bowling balls was very small, say 0.001 g (piece of dust), and the other was 7 kg (15 lb roughly). This would result in the 7 kg ball falling faster than the small one, because the air resistance on the small ball is proportionately much greater than on the big ball. On top of that, you have a (theoretical) larger gravitational pull between the earth and the bowling balls, and the terminal velocity of the bigger ball will be slightly higher than the smaller ball.

So the answer is the 15 lb ball will fall faster than the 8 lb ball, but I doubt you would be able to measure the difference.

The "speed" or acceleration of gravity (G) is approximately 9.81 m/sec^2 on the earth's surface. That varies slightly depending on your latitude, elevation, the moon's position, and many other complex variables including the density of the earth's crust wherever you happen to be.

Note that in science and engineering we refer to "rate" or "velocity" not "pace." We also do not use the "speed" of gravity, we say acceleration.

Answer 2

No they will not contrary to scientific belief:

Yes it is true that anything droped from any altitude will drop at 32 feet per second, however there is a curve in acceleration that most people forget!

a 15 pound bowling ball will reach that speed before a 8 pound bowling ball will.

So if both were drop from a 10 story building or even a 50 story building at exactly the same moment, the 15 pound ball will reach full droping speed before the 8 pound ball will.

And it will gain a fractional ever so little advantage in actual time and hit the ground first!

Answer 3

On the moon a piece of paper, or even a speck of dust will fall the same speed as a heavy rock.

The motion formula, v^2 = 2gs, does not contain m for mass, so the weight of an object is irrelevant. The only thing that alters the equation on Earth is that there is air resistance.

So, if the two bowling balls are the same size, I have to disagree with the previous respondant - they will fall at same speed. Only if one was bigger and thus had more air resistance would their speeds differ.

Answer 4

No. They will have the same rate of acceleration, but because the 15 pound bowling ball has more mass (and I assume is roughly the same shape as the 8 lb one), it will fall faster. The only way it wouldn't fall faster is if it's shape allowed for more air resistance, but in the shape of a ball, that's no problem.

Answer 5

LOL.
I can't believe some of the answers...
1st off, yes they'll hit the ground at the same time. The time it takes for an object to hit the ground, does not depend on its mass.
As for the part of "speed of gravity", there is no such thing. What you can have is acceleration due to gravity which is about 9.8m/s^2 (meters per second squared) or in the wacky american system of feet, about 32 feet/s^2.

Answer 6

yes they will, but gravity has no speed. the excelleration of gravity is determined by the distance from the center of the earth.

footnote: gravity is measured in forces of velocity. ex: when jets are traveling at 4 g's it means they are traveling 4 times the force of gravity. the speeds vary at different altitudes. so objects dropped from the same height have the same gravitational pull therefore dropping at the same rate. and mass is not a factor.

Answer 7

They will fall at the same rate assuming there are no outside forces acting on them. The speed of gravity? I think the rate at which they fall will be the same as gravity will exert the same on each item.

Answer 8

Yes, they will land at the same time - the difference in air resistance will be negligible - acceleration, not velocity, due to gravity (near the Earth's surface) is 9.8 m/s^2.

Answer 9

No, the more massive ball will fall slightly faster because it has more gravity. Nobody knows the speed of gravity since gravity slows time, it is difficult to measure it's speed, which is distance per unit of time.

Answer 10

It will truly depend on the height of the building. Terminal velocity won't be reached unless a certain height is obtained. I think the acceleration of gravity is -9.78 m/s squared, not sure of the speed.