Free Fall

The term free fall describes the motion of an object in a vertical direction (up or down). For example, if a pen falls from a desk to the floor or a person throws a pen into the air, we might measure the distance the object falls and the velocity with which it falls.

When an object moves in a free fall it is always moving with a constant acceleration, which is called acceleration due to gravity or gravitational acceleration. It is this gravitational force which prevents the freefalling object from flying. Gravitational acceleration always has a value of 9.8 m/s². A special symbol "g" is assigned to gravitational acceleration and is used in formulas in order to distinguish acceleration due to gravity from other kinds of accelerations.

There are several formulas that you must be familiar with in order to solve problems that have to do with free fall.

This formula is used to calculate the distance that an object has traveled in air during its fall.