How fast do objects fall?

Objects fall to the ground because of the force of gravity. A force acting on an object will cause it to accelerate - do all objects accelerate when falling at the same rate?

Galileo investigated this problem at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He hypothesised that all objects accelerate under gravity at the same rate - was he right?

You will need:

timing gates, clamps and stand, card, timing software (e.g. Insight Digital)

What to do

Set your software to measure acceleration using two gates - you will have to enter the length of the card but not the distance between the gates.
Drop the card so that it fails vertically through both gates and measure the acceleration.

Things to try

• does the distance between the gates affect the acceleration?'
• does the height that the card is released from affect the acceleration?
• does the mass of the card affect its acceleration?

Investigation card courtesy of Micro-SCOPE Sheffield Hallam University