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The bowling ball isn’t falling to the earth faster. The higher perceived acceleration is due to the earth falling toward the bowling ball.

  • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    So obviously I ended up in the middle of this bell curve. How would that cause the perception of the ball’s acceleration to differ?

    • BB84@mander.xyzOP
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      2 days ago

      When the earth pulls on an object with some F newtons of force, the object is also pulling on the earth with the same force. It’s just that the earth is so massive that its acceleration F/m will be tiny. Tiny is not zero though, so the earth is still accelerating toward the object. The heavier the object, the faster earth accelerates toward it.

      Both the bowling ball and the feather accelerates toward earth at the same g=9.81m/s^2, but the earth accelerates toward the bowling ball faster than it does toward the feather.

    • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It won’t cause the perception to differ because the difference is so small it’s impossible to measure