Race between equal masses

Classical Mechanics Level 2

Suppose Galileo dropped a one-kilogram ball of cotton and one-kilogram ball of iron from the top of the Leaning Tower of PIsa, then which one will reach the ground first?

Assume that the cotton ball is tightly wadded up and that initially the bottoms of the cotton ball and iron ball are at the same horizontal level.

Iron Both will reach at same time Cotton

Rohit Gupta by Rohit Gupta , 34, India

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1 solution

Alex Wang
Jul 14, 2016

Air resistance causes the cotton to slow down but not for the iron ball. So, the iron ball reaches the ground first.

9 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 6 Confused

Both are effected by air resistance. Iron is denser than cotton and therefor would have a smaller relative surface area affected by air resistance even when wadded tightly. On this principal, a ball of gold would reach the ground before a ball of iron does when dropped similarly. Densities are to remain relatively the same for each material as increasing the densities would require material transitioning

Rohan Smit - 4 years, 10 months ago

Provided that weight remains uniform

Rohan Smit - 4 years, 10 months ago

You can have one kilogram of dence cotton.

A Former Brilliant Member - 2 years, 10 months ago

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And about that?

Hadley Shaw - 2 years, 1 month ago

Kinda confusing! 😵

Hadley Shaw - 2 years, 1 month ago

And I don’t really get it.

Hadley Shaw - 2 years, 1 month ago

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