Elephant and Feather - Air Resistance
anim'n of elephant and feather falling w/air resistanceSuppose that an elephant and a feather are dropped off a very tall building from the same height at the same time. We will assume the realistic situation that both feather and elephant encounter air resistance. Which object - the elephant or the feather - will hit the ground first? The animation at the right accurately depicts this situation. The motion of the elephant and the feather in the presence of air resistance is shown. Further, the acceleration of each object is represented by a vector arrow.