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yeah everything is probably made of like, idk, earth water, fire and air or something idrk (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

While that is true, two properly selected objects (such as the ones mentioned above) can reduce the effect of air resistance to levels negligible to human perception, demonstrating that heavier objects do not intrinsically fall faster.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Not at all. Our air is made up of physical objects (molecules of oxygen and nitrogen, mostly). Things with more mass, more quickly knock those out of the way.

    For a demonstration you can see and more easily wrap your head around, take something just barely heavier than water, and a similarly sized heavy rock and drop them in a pool. You'll see how much quicker the rock gets to the bottom, because it displaces the water so much faster. Our atmosphere is the exact same.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    It seems maybe you're actually misunderstanding. As I mentioned above, both you and the other commenter are certainly correct that the surrounding atmosphere (water in your case) exerts force on the objects as they fall, with varying effects depending on object density. However, if you take two objects that have vastly more density than the water (let's say a big tungsten rod and another tungsten rod that has a hollow core), they will drop at approximately the same rate in the water even if their density vs each other varies. The greater the difference of their density versus the density of the medium, the less the effect of the medium. Is there still technically an effect? Sure, but that effect is negligible from a human perceptual perspective.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I understand what you're saying (call it like a 10" 100 pound tungsten ball vs a 5" 50 pound tungsten ball) but your reasoning and logic of being essentially the same are just silly and the math that would dictate when each would land in atmosphere would still line up perfectly (which would be that the heaviest one will hit first). even if it were a 10,000 pound ball and a 5,000 pound ball.

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