why does a rock fall faster than a feather?
350704
air resistance.\n\n Do the experiment yourself- if at school- get a teacher to make up a sealed tube, suck out the air (less difficult than it sounds- i remember doing something like this) and then invert it. its very strange.
771396
Because gravity is the same - so it has the same effect on both objects.  The larger object will strike the ground with a greater force, but both objects will accelerate at the same rate.
1030122
Both would actually fall at the same speed in the absence of air resistance.  Therefore, the apple would fall faster.  \n\nHowever, on the moon, when the astronauts dropped a feather and a bowling ball, they hit the ground at the same time.  \n\nIt would seem that the bowling ball should fall faster since gravity is pulling on it with more force.  But, with the more mass, comes more inertia, which meas it resists being pulled more than the feather.  So, the feather is pulled less, but it resists less as well, so because of that, they will fall at the same time.  The relationship between the force of pull and the object's inertial compensates exactly so that all objects fall at the same rate.
904552
Both balls would hit the rocks at the same speed.\nBall #1 would leave your hand travelling straight up at speed 'u'. It travels up, stops, and starts plummeting back to earth. When it reaches the height at which it left your hand, it is travelling at speed 'u' straight down. The speed that it hits the rocks at is u+(time x 10m/s/s).\n\nBall #2 would leave your hand travelling straight down at speed 'u'. The speed that it hits the rocks at is u+(time x 10m/s/s). It is the same speed.
613245
x is greater than y. when the rock is on the boat, it displaced water equal to its weight. when its in the water, it displaces water equal to its volume. the rock's density is greater than that of water. so more weight than volume equals more water displaced while its on the boat which means the level is higher.
548776
u've taken both the feathers nd the bricks as 1ton. the answer is in ur question only. both r 1ton tht is they r equal. the only difference v can make out is their quantity.
400216
It depends on windspeed and direction, and the planes direction in relavence to that speed and direction. It depends on the speed of the plane. It depends on the density of the object, because of wind resistance. EX. feather would be close, lead ball would be further. Your question is like me saying, "I am in a car, how long will it take me to get to McDonalds?" Not enough info
412533
this is the concept of terminal velocity.  The cat will reach a certain speed and then go no faster because the friction caused by the air will counteract gravity to a certain extent.
464783
The paper is out, because of wind resistance, leaving only the small and big rocks.  Refering to the 11th century-actually, Newton's law was supplanted some years ago, and we know that the acceleration due to gravity is determined by the combined gravitational forces of both objects.  Assuming an exactly equal shape and an exactly equal density of the two rocks, the larger would fall more rapidly, because of the involvement of it's own gravity.  If we assume, for example, that the small rock is the size of a baseball, and the big rock is the size of, oh...the moon, then the big rock will fall quite a bit faster (the combined gravity will be greater, because of greater mass).  As the large rock gets smaller, the gravity will decrease.  However, no matter how close in size the two rocks, there will be some difference.  It would not be easily measurable at anything less that a few million tons, but it would still be there.\nNewton was likely the greatest genius that ever lived...but we have moved beyond him in a lot of areas, including our understanding of gravity-
837767
Bingo!!! You got it...air resistance.  If you dropped them in a total vacuum, they would both fall at the same rate.
448071
Because of it's position. If it's vertical. it would fall faster. If it's horizontal, there is more space for the air to push it up. It would fall slower because air molecules pushes it up as the leaf pushes air down. Have you heard of "Action-Reaction". All objects exert force to one another. Hope that helps.
768024
Neglecting air resistance, the velocity of an object freely falling near the surface of Earth increases by 32 feet per second per second.
332344
you already know that as the Earth orbits the Sun it is weightless. But it certainly is not massless.\n\nBecause the Earth has mass it exerts a force of gravity and the magnitude of this force of gravity is determined by the mass of the Earth and the distance away from the center of the Earth another object is. Now, you know that if you drop something it falls. But did you know that as it falls it accelerates? That means that as it falls it falls faster and faster and faster until it hits the ground. On earth at sea level objects that fall speed up at a rate of 9.8 m/s every second. So, for every second something falls it falls 9.8 m/s faster with each passing second. You can see that at this rate you are going pretty fast real soon. (9.8 m/s is a little more than 20 miles per hour, so in three seconds you are already going 60 mph!)\n\nIf you go way high up a mountain the acceleration due to gravity is a little less than 9.8 m/s. If you go higher still the accleleration is even less and so on. You can tell how high you are by how fast objects that fall accelerate.\n\nNow, here is the really neat part: all objects accelerate to the Earth at exactly the same rate given the same distance from the Earths center. In other words, even the Moon is accelerating towards the Earth at a rate that is appropriate for its distance from the Earth's center! If another object, say with the mass of this desktop computer, were to be placed in the moon's orbit it would circle the Earth at exactly the same speed as the moon. Why? Because both objects are accelerating towards the Earth and all objects, regardless of their mass, accelerate towards the Earth at exactly the same rate.\n\nSo here is where it all comes together: If you know how far an object is from the center of a planet or a sun and if you know the rate of acceleration that that object is accelerating towards that planet or that sun you can easily calculate the mass of that planet or sun because only an object of that planet's or sun's mass can accelerate an object towards it at that rate at that distance.\n\nIsn't that amazing? This procedure was actually used to calculate the mass of the earth and it is used to calculate, well, the mass of any orbited body. In fact, we did not know the mass of the planet Mercury until we put a satellite around it.\n\nWhat is that magic equation? Well, there are actually several. Here is one that can be used of you know the time it takes an object to orbit the object you want to find the mass of (T) and if you also know the distance between the centers of both objects (r): M=4 pi2*r3/T2G. 'M' is the mass of the orbited object in kilograms; 'r' is the distance between the centers of the two ogjects in meters; 'T' is the time it takes the orbiting object to orbit the planet or sun you want the mass of and 'G' is the Universal Gravitational Constant (6.672 x 10-11 Nm2/kg2) and pi is 3.14. Note that all this tells you is the mass of the orbited object. This will not tell you the mass of the orbiting object. There is no way to calculate that without finding something to orbit it!\n\ncheck this website \n\nhttp://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae170.cfm
147458
But here is the tricky part.  If you ask which weighs more - a POUND of feathers or a POUND of gold, then the pound of feathers weighs more.  Gold is measured in troy weight, adn there are only 12 ounces to the pound, whereas feathers use 16 ounces to the pound.
805410
Let me ask you a question. \n\n If I shot a bullet straight up, and then dropped a feather..  would the falling object move faster than the one going upwards?
320933
Two reasons:\n\nPrimary = spinning + gravity = natural inclination of the material to slowly reach equilibrium. Anything that is not "round" gets pulled/shifted toward the center of gravity (the center of the Earth). The spinning helps this process over billions of years.\n\nSecondary = weather. Erosion constantly smoothing out "bumps" (mountains).\n\nIf this is the best answer, please vote it the best answer. Thanks!
380562
Newton's 3rd law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.\nIf the bird pushes backward with some force, another force of equal magnitude will push the bird forward.  This is similar to how rockets work, the rocker engines push one way, the space craft accelerates the opposite way.\n\nAnother way of thinking of it is that momentum is always conserved.  If the bird exerts a force on the air backward, that air (which has mass) experiences a change in momentum.  In order for momentum to be conserved, another force needs to be exerted on the bird to accelerate it in the opposite direction.