How weight is related to gravitational pull?

Question

If weight is the measure of the gravitational pull on something, then why wouldn't a heavier object with the same surface area(wind resistance) as a lighter object fall faster. Wouldn't its greater gravitational pull make it fall faster toward the Earth. Does it actually fall faster, but it is nearly incalculable because of its size in comparison to the mass of the Earth?

Answer 1

well on earth, everything has a teminal velocity. now if you dropped a ping pong ball and a golf ball from where you're standing, neither would have time to reach thier teminal verlocity, so they'd hit the ground at the same time. now if you dropped them both from a 30 story building, my bet would be the golf ball hits the ground first........

Answer 2

Weight is a measure of the force of gravity experienced by an object (in a way the same as gravitational pull). We are going to develop a few ideas to see if this can be explained to you. You have a few ideas which are useful here.

I will neglect air resistance at this point in time and come back to it later. This will make the problem much easier. I assume what you mean by heavier is more massive, has more mass. You are correct that a more massive object would feel a greater gravitational force than a less massive object. Newton's Law of Gravitation suggests this fact:

F=(G*m1*m2)/r^2

While a more massive object does experience a higher force doe that mean it experiences a higher acceleration due to gravity (falls faster)? Lets use Newton's second law of motion to find out:

F=m*a so a=F/m

If we combine to two laws for an object with mass m2 on a planet mass m1 we find:

F=m2*a=(G*m1*m2)/r^2 so a=(G*m1)/r^2

This means the acceleration of gravity, how fast an object falls is not mass dependent, the mass of the falling object does not matter. In the simple case, all objects fall at the same rate regardless of mass or weight.

Now we will add air resistance to the equation. The amount of air resistance felt by an object is a function of its velocity, mass, and surface area. If the surface area is the same, we can now say it is just a function of mass and velocity. So a more massive object would fall slightly faster than a less massive object. The reason why it is hard to calculate in normal settings is the fact that air resistance is fairly negliable at low velocities. If I threw a bowling ball and an equivalent sized head of lettuce off my room, they would hit the ground at about the same time because they do not reach sufficient velocities for air resistance to be a factor.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Yes, the heavier object does fall faster. It falls faster because it would have a greater mass than the lighter object. It is not the weight that matters it is the mass that matters. The larger the mass the greater its gravitational pull should be. So the larger object is also pulling the earth toward it too. Thus the pull between the earth and the heavier object is faster than the pull between the earth and the lighter object.

I'm pretty sure there is a formula out there to calculte it. Go check out something on Isaac Newton.

Answer 4

You also have to think of inertia. An object will attempt to maintain its state of motion unless acted upon by an external force. So, you have object A which is exact same shape as object B except object A is more dense. More mass of object A means A has more inertia. It takes less gravitational energy to get object B moving than it does object A. But, since there is more mass in object A there is more matter for gravity to exert its force upon. Bottom line. All the factors cancel out or equalize to make all objects fall at the same rate. Your logic is correct if you only consider the gravity factor. But, when you add the inertial factor into the equation, you still get the same rate for both objects. I apologize if this doesn't make sense, I know exactly what I mean and this answer doesn't quite seem adequate to me.

Answer 5

f = mg - 1/2 Cd A rho v^2 = W - Fd = ma

f is the net force acting on a body of mass m and accelerating (a).

W is the weight of something = mg; with g acceleration due to gravity.

Fd is drag force acting in opposition to the weight; so it wants to slow down the fall. Cd is the coefficient of drag, A the cross sectional area, rho is the atmospheric density, and v is the velocity of the falling body.

The two bodies will hit the ground at the same time if and only if their accelerations are the same throughout their fall and they are dropped concurrently from the same height. Solving for a, the acceleration, a = [W - Fd]/m for each of the two bodies. If the drag forces are essentially zero, falling in a vacuum for example, the acceleration becomes a = W/m = mg/m = g. Thus, if the drag forces of the heavy and light bodies are essentially zero, they both will fall to the Earth at g acceleration; so they hit the ground at the same time when released at the same time from the same height.

So, to answer your question, if the drag forces are not essentially zero, falling in the atmosphere for example, each body might indeed fall at different rates if they have different weights and/or drag forces. Their accelerations (a) could be quite different depending on the values of each factor for each body in f = mg - 1/2 Cd A rho v^2.

Good question.

Answer 6

What you pose as a question are two masses that are falling through a vacuum. The answer to your question lies in the "mass" of each object. It is this that gravitational waves accelerate toward the center of a mass.

First, gravitational waves are waves of a particular kind of energy. This energy appears best described as c(g) = h. A single gravitational wave is equal to that of plank's constant. This is a very small value that is formed by the third equation of the physics trilogy, which is: E = mc2, m = E/c2, and c2 = E/m. It is the last that describes a gravitational field, or a field of physical time - they are the same.

The energy source in the above is that of the heat energy contained within the mass. If our planet were to have no heat energy within it, then it would have no gravitational field. Were it to increase, then the gravitational field would also increase. The energy being expended within our planet in form of gravitational waves is 0.00444 kg/sec. In our sun, it is 665 lbs/sec.

The reason for gravitational intensity is the quantity of waves passing through a mass in one second, and not due to a change of energy per graviton. This form of energy operates on the inverse square system as does electromagnetic energy.

http://360.yahoo.com/noddarc there are different short writings that speak to this. You might try, "Magnetism and Gravity".

Answer 7

It is harder for gravity to move an object with greater mass, even though the pull is greater - the effects cancels out. That is why the objects would fall at the same speed

Answer 8

They both fall at the same speed. The force of gravity is still the SAME for both objects. It would fall faster in a higher gravitational field--such as Jupiter. Or slower--such as the moon.

Again, the force on both objects in the same gravitational field is the same.

This was demonstrated by the first Apollo landing in 1969.

Answer 9

Weight = g times mass