Anvil Drop

Classical Mechanics Level 1

Say someone dropped an anvil and a bowling ball from an equal height (150 ft) and with equal force (0 anything). Assuming the anvil is 15 lbs heavier, air resistance isn't a factor, and they accelerate at exactly the same rate, which will hit the ground first?

They will hit the ground at the same time The anvil They will never hit the ground The bowling ball

1 solution

Jeffrey Higham
Apr 11, 2018

All items drop at the same speed, regardless of weight.

This depends ... where were the items dropped? Air resistance has to be taken into account.

Siva Budaraju - 3 years, 2 months ago

Wrong solution. Only true if there is no air resistance. Please see discussions here: https://brilliant.org/problems/galileos-experiment-2/#!/solution-comments/177414/

Laszlo Mihaly - 3 years, 1 month ago

because of the shape of the items air resistance may appear insignificantly

aaryan vaishya - 2 years, 3 months ago

Assuming there is no air resistance, a bowling ball of mass 5kg and radius 0.1m, dropped from 50m height, will reach a velocity of 30m/s. At that velocity the air resistance is about 10 N. The weight of the ball is about 50 N, only 5 times larger. Therefore air resistance cannot be neglected.

Laszlo Mihaly - 2 years, 3 months ago

Reconsidering what you said,air resistance may or may not be negligible because,as the terminal velocity of an object is inversely proportional to sqrt of the area(projected) of the object,the air resistance for both objects may or may not be the same.But if I told you that 2 cars were going to travel at 45 mph from LA and Chicago(one at each city)and meet when they see each other;then ask you if the meeting point was the midpoint;you said yes(obviously):then I said no because LA is more populated and has more traffic;I would be horribly wrong.Similarly,you cannot say it is wrong because air resistance is non-negligible,you must adhere to the problem's overgeneralized rules and neglect air resistance

aaryan vaishya - 2 years, 3 months ago

Physics is not an abstract science. It deals with real life situations. Under the circumstances described in the problem air resistance is not negligible.

Laszlo Mihaly - 2 years, 3 months ago

In grade physics this is not true

aaryan vaishya - 2 years, 3 months ago

Also you are making physics an "abstract science"by implying air resistance.

aaryan vaishya - 2 years, 3 months ago

Anvil Drop

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