Free fall describes an object dropped from rest and falling under gravity alone, ignoring air resistance.
Free fall describes an object dropped from rest and falling under gravity alone, ignoring air resistance. This calculator finds how long it takes to fall a given height and how fast it's moving when it lands.
An object is dropped from a 20 m tower. Fall Time = √(2×20/9.81) ≈ 2.02 s. Final Velocity = 9.81 × 2.02 ≈ 19.81 m/s.
Using kinematic equations for constant acceleration under gravity, such as velocity = g × t and distance = 0.5 × g × t², where g is gravitational acceleration (about 9.8 m/s² on Earth).
No — standard free fall calculations assume no air resistance (a vacuum), which is accurate for dense objects falling short distances but less accurate for light or fast-falling objects over longer drops.
Without air resistance, gravitational acceleration is the same for all objects regardless of mass — famously demonstrated on the Moon during Apollo 15.