Observations of gravitational free fall during drop experiments support a quadratic model
Abstract
When an object is dropped, standard kinematics predicts that in the absence of resistive forces, the vertical distance it travels due to gravity is described quadratically with respect to time. In this experiment, we dropped a tennis ball with negligible initial velocity from various known test heights and recorded the fall time for each trial. We then assessed whether our data were consistent with the predictions of standard kinematics, ultimately finding evidence that our height vs time data is compatible with the constant acceleration assumption of kinematics with a gravitational acceleration of magnitude 9.4 ± 0.3 m/s2 .
Fields of Study & Subjects
Experimental and Theoretical Physics Studies
Educational Methods and Outcomes
Relativity and Gravitational Theory
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Journal of Science & Engineering
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 47–49
- Publication date
- 26 February 2026
- Language
- EN