Galileo's balls experiment  other topics
for use with materialworlds Galileo's balls simulation  
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Galileo's experiment 1 - falling balls

A large and a small ball (made of the same material) are dropped at the same time from the same height.
Which will hit the ground first?
Does the amount of air friction or the density of the balls make any difference?

about the simulation...
Controls allow the amount of air friction and the density of the balls to be varied.
(The readouts of air friction and density are relative to their initial levels - so a reading of 1.00 means unchanged; 0.5 means halved; 2.0 doubled)
The simulation can be set to pause automatically when either of the balls hits the ground.
Arrows on the balls show forces (red) and velocity (blue).
A graph records the vertical position, velocity and acceleration of both balls.