Free Fall: Does Mass Change How Fast Things Drop?

1 · Predict

Drop a light, a medium, and a heavy ball from the same height at the same time. Which one hits the ground first?

• The heavier ball falls faster and lands first.
• All three fall at the same rate and land together.
• The lighter ball falls faster and lands first.

2 · Set Up

1. Open the free-fall preset. You should see three balls of different sizes lined up at the same height.
2. Attach the height probe to the medium ball and confirm all three balls start at the same y-position.
3. Run the simulation and use the stopwatch/frame counter to time each ball's fall.

3 · Collect Data

Plot fall speed (y-axis) against elapsed time (x-axis) for all three balls on the same graph.

4 · Analyze

1. Compare the fall speeds of the light, medium, and heavy balls at the same elapsed time. What do you notice?
2. Using your data, compute the acceleration (Δspeed / Δtime) for each ball. How does it compare to g = 9.8 m/s²?

5 · Extend

1. A feather and a bowling ball dropped in real air do NOT land together. What force, missing from this idealized sim, causes that difference?
2. Astronauts on the Moon dropped a hammer and a feather and they landed together. Explain why the Moon is a better place than Earth to see this demonstration with real objects.

The Physics Behind This Experiment

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