GarandOwner
Member
:banghead: I give up on this thread, too many people reinforcing false ideas. IN AIR objects do not fall at the same rate, not because of gravity but because of AIR RESISTANCE. All of the references to basic physics is referencing an IDEALIZED problem (which means air resistance is neglected) In the real world air resistance acts on everything. This is most evident in the classic case of dropping a pound of feathers and a 1 pound lead ball, a feather is not as aerodynamic as a ball, so it falls slower DUE TO AIR RESISTANCE. Now we look at two identical bullets, bullets are made to be aerodynamic, so their ability to overcome air resistance is great. When you drop two identical bullets, one that is heavier than the other, the heavier bullet will hit the ground first. HOWEVER the difference in time is so small that it is not humanly possible to percieve the difference.
Say you have a 55gr bullet and a 230 gr bullet that are of the same shape and size and you drop them at the same time from 5 feet. Using the position function that includes air resistance, we get that the 230 gr bullet will hit the ground in .5570 sec whereas the lighter bullet will hit the ground in .5582 seconds that is a difference of .0012 seconds or 12 ten thousandths of a second. The human eye can not observe this small of a time. That is why it seems that they hit at the same time, the spread between times decreases as height decreases
(ie they hit closer together if you drop them from a smaller distance)
Say you have a 55gr bullet and a 230 gr bullet that are of the same shape and size and you drop them at the same time from 5 feet. Using the position function that includes air resistance, we get that the 230 gr bullet will hit the ground in .5570 sec whereas the lighter bullet will hit the ground in .5582 seconds that is a difference of .0012 seconds or 12 ten thousandths of a second. The human eye can not observe this small of a time. That is why it seems that they hit at the same time, the spread between times decreases as height decreases
(ie they hit closer together if you drop them from a smaller distance)