Do heavier objects fall faster ?

  Do heavier objects really fall faster? in brief:- No, both heavier and lighter object falls at the same acceleration if the air is not present. It means that both touch ground at the same time.

Introduction

You’ll find after reading the reason that this question is very easy but this question was very controversial (in earlier times) because much more things were not available at that time for experiments.

let’s understand this by what two legend philosophers “Aristotle and Galilio” said about it .let’s see who is right and who is wrong.

Aristotle

Earlier, most people believe in Aristotle. He experimented with it by dropping a feather and a coin at the same time. A coin that has more weight, touched ground faster than a feather. He concluded from his experiment that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects because it has more mass which means more gravitational pull.

Galileo

Many people believe that Galileo dropped stones of different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa .but this story is not correct.

what he really did was that he rolled balls of different weights on a smooth slope. 

It is almost the same as dropping bodies vertically. He did it because it was easy to observe that which one touches the ground first as the speed of objects would be very less and observing which stone Falls first from Leaning Tower of Pisa or any building was very difficult as the speed of the stone would be very much.

Galileo observed that each body increased its speed (accelerated) at the same rate irrespective of its weight.

Why did Aristotle fail?

In Aristotle’s experiment, the coin would definitely fall faster than the feather because the feather is slowed down by resistance caused by air.

If anyone drops two objects of different weights and if the resistance experienced by both of them is almost the same then both the objects will touch the ground at the same time and the acceleration will also be equal.

Conclusion

The object which has more weight will have more force of gravity pulling it down but it will also have more mass, and more mass means more inertia. 

                 so according to Newton’s second law, these two effects will exactly cancel each other so the acceleration of both objects will be the same and hence they will reach the ground at the same time.

It will only happen when the air resistance experienced by both the object of different mass is the same or air is not present there( means there is a vacuum).

Experiment by Brian Cox (physicist) with BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)

Brian Cox visited NASA's space power facility near Cleveland, Ohio, which is the world's biggest vacuum chamber.

                                     He dropped a bowling ball (heavier mass) and a feather (lighter mass) in a vacuum (without air).

             And you can see clearly in the video that both fall at the same rate.

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