Fall Fallacy

Classical Mechanics Level 2

Suppose you are travelling in a train with an object of unit mass. While travelling, you take out the object mass, and hold it outside the window. After some time, you drop it perpendicular to the ground. Will that object fall on the point perpendicular to the drop, or will it change its falling point ?

It will change its position in the direction of the moving train. It will fall on the desired point. It will change its position opposite to the direction of the moving train It will not fall; it will move with the train.

Eshan Abbas by Eshan Abbas , 23, India

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2 solutions

Umang Vasani
Jun 27, 2014

You must specify to neglect the air resistance. So then it will change its position in the direction of the moving train

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If the train moves with an acceleration the object will feel a pseudo force acting just at the opposite direction of the acceleration of the train

Saswata Dasgupta - 6 years, 10 months ago
Dave Dave
Jul 24, 2014

The object is travelling at the speed of the train right up until the moment it is dropped. Therefore, due to air resistance and gravity, it will follow a trajectory in the direction of the moving train that could theoretically be plotted by knowing the speed of the train, the height above the ground that the object is dropped from, and the size, weight and shape of the object.

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