How Far Does a Falling Object Fall

For all those of a curious temperament or whoever pondered a basic question in physics, "How far does a falling object fall?", I have your answer. Firstly, I state the question posed my professor and then I followed, directly, with my textbookish answer:

Here is my reply:

How does an object behave when it is launched horizontally? (Which hits first, the launched or the dropped ball?)

The acceleration due to gravity, noted as g, of said object remains the same whether dropped or thrown--upwards, downwards, or sideways. Thusly, g depends not on the horizontal throw.

The said object, when thrown horizontally, experiences velocity in two distinct directions, one horizontally and the other vertically. The horizontal velocity stays at a constant speed (taking for a moment that said object undergoes no recognizable resistance from the surrounding air) and the vertical occurs from the acceleration due to gravity acting on said object at 9.8 m/s2.

Ergo, if a ball--launched or dropped--befell from a given height, its lag time until it reaches the impact with the ground below would in both instances be matching, due solely to the g. Note that the horizontal acceleration affects not the g;--that is, the ball falls, nonetheless, despite its horizontal travel. More distance by the thrown ball, yes, is covered, yet the additional distance belongs entirely to course of the ball’s horizontal trajectory.

Succinctly, acceleration due to gravity g remains the equal on either the launched or the dropped ball, so the ball reaches the ground in the same allotted time given.


I feel this answer I am be redundant, yet I hope for forceful. It was for a classes on the physical universe. Not much else to say, but that I hope you learnt something or better yet you already ruminated the question to discover the truth of the matter.