Visualizing Motion During A Free Fall

When we drop the ball, let’s say from the top floor of a building, then till it reaches the ground, the ball is said to be in a free-fall motion.

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What is Free Fall?

Freefall is defined as a situation when a body is moving only under the influence of the earth’s gravity. Since external force is acting on the ball, the motion will be accelerated. This free-fall acceleration is also known as acceleration due to gravity. Let us find the value acceleration due to gravity during free fall. To find this, we take one assumption that the height from which the ball is dropped is very small as compared to the radius of the earth.

Force acting during free fall = Force of gravitation between earth and ball

We have assumed,

According to Newton’s second law,

Freefall acceleration or acceleration due to gravity is represented by ‘g’.

Using equation (1) and (2),

Where,

Now the next that comes to mind is that we have already seen is ‘G’ i.e. Universal Gravitational Constant. Its value remains the same everywhere. But is it true for g? From equation (3) we can see that g depends on the dimension of the body i.e. mass and radius. Hence, it will not be the same everywhere. Also, as the acceleration remains constant during free-fall motion, so we can use equations of motion. We just have to replace the value of acceleration in all the equations with g.

For example,

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