free fall
Sign in to savemotion of a body where its weight is the only force acting upon it; any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it
AI overview
Free fall is motion that occurs when gravity is the only force acting on an object, such as when something drops through the air without air resistance or other forces slowing it down. It matters because understanding free fall helps us predict how objects move under gravity alone, which is fundamental to physics, space travel, and engineering.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
In classical mechanics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. A freely falling object may not necessarily be falling down in the vertical direction. If the common definition of the word "fall" is used, an object moving upwards is not considered to be falling, but using scientific definitions, if it is subject to only the force of gravity, it is said to be in free fall. The Moon is thus in free fall around the Earth, though its orbital speed keeps it in very far orbit from the Earth's surface.
In a roughly uniform gravitational field, gravity acts on each part of a body approximately equally. When there are no other forces, such as the normal force exerted between a body (e.g. an astronaut in orbit) and its surrounding objects, it will result in the sensation of weightlessness, a condition that also occurs when the gravitational field is weak (such as when the body is far away from any source of gravity).