AP Physics 1: 3.4 Properties of Objects and Systems
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AP Physics 1: 3.4 Properties of Objects and Systems. Which object experiences the greatest acceleration?
AP Physics 1 | Properties of Objects and Systems |
Language | English Language |
Science Practice 7 | Relating knowledge across scales, concepts, and representations |
Transcript
(Mumbles)
All right, let's imagine what would actually happen
in this situation we'd probably begin climbing to the top of the Empire State [Man climbing up huge staircase]
Building and well on second thought we'd take the elevator (laughs)
Come on we're carrying a bowling ball here people. Plus it's like a bajillion flights of stairs.
Anyway at the top we'd go to the observation deck and pull the bowling
ball the marble and the feather out of the bag, we look around and make sure
there's no security around... don't forget that and then we'd give them a shove.
Now what would happen well the marble and the bowling ball would drop right away, the [Marble and bowling ball have already landed and the feather is floating down]
feather well it won't be going quite so fast. But that's not because gravity is
slower for the feather after all gravity is a constant the reason the feather
falls slower than the bowling ball or the marble is because the feathers shape
and mass make it more susceptible to air resistance like its densities different.
As all of these objects fall gravity is pulling them down and the air is pushing
back against them, but in a vacuum chamber with no air at all, all three of
these things will fall at the exact same rate. Now the bowling ball is definitely [Objects are dropped in a vacuum chamber]
falling with more force which will be obvious when it hits the ground, splat..
But the acceleration they all experience is the same: 9.8 meters per second squared
here on earth that's the acceleration of gravity for feathers, for bowling balls
and for everything else. So the correct answer here is D the acceleration is equal
for all of the objects and we don't have to worry about air resistance in a
vacuum. Oh and please remember that whole dropping things from the top of the [Police have the man in handcuffs]
Empire State Building scenario was just to show how things work, we shouldn't go
around dropping things off of building even if it's for science... [Bowling ball lands on securities head]