And the iron would hit the ground much faster because it pushes air molecules out of the way quicker.
Comment on yeah everything is probably made of like, idk, earth water, fire and air or something idrk
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours agoA similar size chunk of iron and coal would have done the experiment just fine. Any two objects of the same shape and size but significantly different densities.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 9 hours ago
missingno@fedia.io 11 hours ago
If two objects have the same size and shape, the force applied by air resistance will be the same. However, if two objects have different mass, that same force will result in different acceleration.
StellarExtract@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
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.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
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.
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
So change the shape, a long copper rod and clump of coal.
missingno@fedia.io 4 hours ago
If you do that then they definitely won't fall the same.