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In Wikipedia it's stated that "[..] gravity, is the natural phenomenon by which physical bodies appear to attract each other with a force proportional to their masses".

Then I found many examples regarding free fall and gravity, such as "a hammer vs feather", "an elephant vs a mouse", etc. They all say that in the absence of another external force (like air-friction/resistance), the hammer, the elephant, the mouse and even the tiny feather, will all fall freely with the same speed and at a constant acceleration (like $1g$).

Ok, I think I can understand that, it makes sense.

Now my question regarding these "experiments":

  • let's suppose that we have an object $E=$ Earth (with its mass ~$6 \times 10^{24}$ $kg$)
  • let's suppose that I have other 3 distinct objects: $O_1=$ a planet with a mass $5.99 \times 10^{24}$kg, $O_2=$ an elephant and $O_3=$ feather.

If we imagine that the all 3 objects are situated above the Earth at a distance $d= 250$ miles, and if we suppose that there is no air-resistance or any other external force to stop their free-fall, then what will happen with ours objects? Which will fall first, second, third?

My understanding is that the $O_1$'s inner force will fight to attract the Earth toward it. The Earth will do the same thing but, having a mass just "a bit" larger than $O_1$, the Earth will eventually win and, will eventually attract the $O_1$ toward it ("down" to Earth). The same thing will happen with the elephant and with the mouse/feather, except that the elephant having a larger mass than the mouse (or feather), will fight just a bit more than the others and will decelerate its fall with $0.00000...1\%$ (let's say) comparing with the mouse/feather (which seems almost the same thing if we ignore few hundred decimals).

Am I completely wrong about this story ?

Kitchi
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Eugen Mihailescu
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2 Answers2

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Assuming that the three objects you speak of are point particles initially positioned pretty much right next to each other, then all three objects will hit the earth at the same time.

From newton's law of gravitation, we have:

$F = \frac{Gm_1m_2}{r^2}$ and where $m_1$ is the mass of the Earth, and $m_2$ is the mass of an object away from the Earth (e.g. feather, or O1).

To obtain acceleration of the object (e.g. feather), we divide by mass, so:

$acceleration = \frac{Gm_1}{r^2}$

As we can see, the acceleration of the feather only depends upon the mass of the Earth. Therefore, the feather and object O1 and the elephant will all accelerate towards Earth at the same rate.

However,

O1 has a very large mass, and this will cause the Earth to accelerate towards O1. But since all three objects were initially positioned in the same spot, and all three objects are accelerating towards Earth at the same rate, the three objects remain next to each other, and therefore when the Earth reaches O1, it will reach the feather and the elephant at the same time.

Kenshin
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I believe the Earths Inertia would prevent any of the other 3 objects from moving it. Their Gravity can not overcome the Earths inertia. Therefore The Earth stay's where it is and the 3 land at exactly the same moment.

Dennis P Ginther
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