What is the theoretical velocity of a freely falling body?

Answer 1

Depends what you mean by "freely falling". If you consider a body falling toward the earth through a complete vacuum, there is practically no limit to its speed. The gravitational attraction will cause the body to accelerate, so the speed will keep increasing until it collides with the earth.

If the body is falling though the atmosphere, however, we must take air resistance into account.

Let the force (downward) due to gravity be F.

Let the drag coefficient of the falling body be C.

Let m be the mass of the body, and v be the speed of the body.

Then we have the equation;

m dv/dt = F - Cv

The speed will be constant when dv/dt = 0, so then F-Cv=0.

Solving for v we get

v = F/C, which will be the terminal velocity of the falling body.

Close to earth, F=mg. The drag coefficient C is much harder to determine. It will depend on the shape of the object, and will also depend on the speed. However, you can look up values for C that can give pretty good approximations if the body is a nice shape.

Answer 2

A free falling body has no apparent weight but weight. concept of apparent wt is valid as long as rection plane is present. be carefull don't confuse wt and apparent wt. wt remains constant till the body is outside the gavity.

Answer 3

That depends on the object. Some bodies have very low freefall speeds, while others have very high ones, and most have sort of "average" speeds.

Usually sky Divers experience a maximum free fall speed (Also known as Terminal Velocity) of 60m/s (meters per second). But that also depends on weight and air conditions.

Answer 4

Nothing.

If the 'weight' of a body is the gravitational force between the body and the Earth,

then as long as the body stays at about the same distance from the center of the

Earth, its weight is constant, and has no connection with its motion.

Answer 5

Near Earth, the acceleration (due to Earth's gravity) is approximately 9.8 meters/second2. In other places, for example at a greater distance from Earth, or on the Moon or on other planets, the acceleration due to gravity takes on other values.