which has a greater force of air resistance, a falling elephant or a falling feather?

Question

and i need to distinguish between a force itself and the effect it produces

Answer 1

The elephant is definitely bigger. I love elephants.

Answer 2

While the elephant has a larger volume, the mass of the elephant is much more and hence the density of the elephant is far more than that of a feather, which has much larger surface area compared to its mass. So, the feather will face higher resistance from the air, unlike the elephant which faces negligible (not zero, but negligibly small) resistance from the air.

The effect it produces is to slow down the descent or fall. Sometimes the feather is blown off or carried off by the air currents and that is different phenomenon. Air resistance should be measured in still air and is directly related to buoyancy.

Answer 3

air resistance as a force depends on the surface of the falling object in contact with the air (roughly), the state of the object (whether it's rough or smooth) and the density of the air (same as in water, oil, or any fluid).
bouyancy is the balance between the weight of the falling object and the resistance of the air. The elephant is much larger than the feather, but the feather is much much lighter thant the elephant. The elephant's air resistance is greater than the feather's, but its effect is really nothing compared to the elephant's weight.
That's the reason the feather will gently glide and the elephant will hit the ground very hard.

Answer 4

As strange as it way seem..the answer is the feather.....its simle why....the ratio between mass and area...while the elephant is larger in area than the feather it is far heavier so, matmatically, it has less resistance to the air....if you dropped both an elephant and a feather off of a building which would land first?? obviously the elephant therefore the feather is affected more..and there's your answer...as for the forces involved..they both are under the influance of gravity and they are both accelerating at the same speed "due to gravity" (9.8m/s^2) this means in a vacum situation (no air) both elephant and feather would hit the ground together at the same time...due to air resistance or "drag" the feather floats down while the elephant smashed to the ground..so graviity is a force producing the fall...drag is the force slowing them down...drag it due to alot of things, mostly area of object dropped and density of the atmosphere... .take care

Answer 5

The drag force on the elephant wll be greater than that of the feather due to it's larger surface area.Hence a free falling elephant will have a greater force of air resistance.

Answer 6

Since the elephant has a grater mass than the feather the elephant pushes a greater amount of force on the air beneath it and "every action has an equal or opposite reaction" and so therefore the elephant has a greater force of air resistance.

Answer 7

The feather will be more dramatically affected by air resistance because it has very little mass, it will flutter to the ground, the elephant will plummet to the ground.

Answer 8

i think the elephant because elephant have bigger surface area than feather