Something amazing to tell you concerning physics and motion

[Jenson71]

This blows my mind.

Okay, say you have two ball bearings. You hold one in your hand and drop it. The other you put in a gun, point it straight forward, as level as the one in your hand, and pull the trigger, sending it hundreds of yards.

Which one lands first?

The one dropped in your hand right? RIGHT!?!?

No, actually they both hit the ground at the same time.

This is because the vertical component of motion is the same for both objects. They both fall vertically the same distance at about 10 meters per second squared (gravity, actually more like 9.8).

But Jenson, Jenson! What about the horizontal component of the gun-fired ball bearing? Actually, when air resistance is small enough to ignore as it is in this case (being that the bearings are exactly alike), the horizontal and vertical components of a projectile's velocity are completely independent of one another.

And, in this experiment, the gun-fired bearing is constantly falling from the moment it is fired. Yes, it looks like it is holding up in a straight line, but, it's actually falling and it's just hard to see with our eyes. And again, it is falling at exactly the same speed as the ball bearing you released in your hand -- the speed of gravity.

Post more cool science things in this thread.

I think I will later post Aristotle vs. Galileo and gravity, for a little history spin on science.