Does earth accelerate towards you as well? EXPLAIN?

Question

If you step off a ledge, you accelerate notiacbly toward the earth because of the gravitational interaction between you and earth.

Answer 1

sure. mass attracks mass. The earth just has a lot more mass than you do, so you do almost all of the moving.

Answer 2

Cbirch's answer is pretty close. Gravitational attraction is determined by the masses of both objects in question, as well as their seperation. So in other words, the gravitation is between you and Earth, it's not that your gravity is so much less than Earth's.

Imagine a pingpong ball and a bowling ball tethered together with a bungee cord. The cord pulls the same on both - it's the "gravitation" in this model. The bowling ball just moves less because it has so much more mass than the ping pong ball.

Incidentally, this is the same reason that every human meeting at one place, and jumping up and down wouldn't alter the Earth's orbit one iota. When they all jump, yes, the Earth's movement is affected. However, the gravitation between it and the people pulls them back together, completely undoing the Earth's change just as much as the jumpers'.

Answer 3

Yes, both you and the Earth feel the SAME force pulling you and the Earth toward each other. But since Earth weighs trillions of times more than you do, it moves trillions of times less than you do under that force. So for all practical purposes, Earth is moving so little as to be meaningless. Kind of like taking one drop of water out of the ocean and calculating how much sea level goes down as a result.

Answer 4

Yeah, persons are top who say the moon is rushing up and slowing down with the aid of fact of an elliptical orbit, plus minor tugs from the solar and different planets. yet i do no longer think of this is incredibly interior the spirit of what this question became into asking. i think of the question purely needed you to think of roughly what acceleration is, this is a metamorphosis in velocity. and because velocity is velocity *and* course. Any substitute in *the two* velocity or course is an acceleration. So the moon is consistently accelerating in a circle around the earth. If it wasn't accelerating, it may be shifting in a straight away line and could shoot off into area rather of orbiting earth. this is like once you're using in a vehicle around a curve. you are able to desire to maintain a continuing 55mph each of ways around the curve, yet you're nevertheless accelerating sideways. and you are able to experience that acceleration, it pushes you to the factor of the vehicle the comparable way stomping on the gas pedal pushes you to the returned of the vehicle. Acceleration is changing velocity, and velocity is velocity * course. to ensure that there to be no acceleration, the two velocity AND course would desire to no longer be changing.

Answer 5

yes. everything with mass creates gravity, even you. its just that the earth is big enough that you actually notice it. your pulling the earth toward you as your falling, but since you gravity isn't really enough to move the earth you just result in pulling yourself towards it faster.