Can you reach terminal velocity in a vacuum

This object is falling inside a vacuum. If the object doesn't hit something first, it will continue to accelerate. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Can a falling body on earth exceed its terminal velocity in a huge vacuum container?

Ask Question. Asked 3 years, 5 months ago. Active 3 years, 5 months ago. Viewed times. Improve this question. Jaffrey Joy Jaffrey Joy 11 1 1 bronze badge. So, there is no way to exceed the terminal velocity. Both objects fall at the same rate, in absence of an atmosphere. Look for the video, it's on youtube. Regentrude, does this mean there is no terminal velocity in a vacuum? If there was a vacuum created in an infinitely long tube that theoretically isn't subjected to any outside forces, would a dropped item continue to accelerate indefinitely in a straight line?

If the tube was vertical, pointing straight away from Earth, an object released into the tube on top would accelerate until it hits the ground. But the acceleration would not be constant in an infinite tube, because the gravitational force is approximately constant, causing a constant free-fall acceleration, only in the vicinity of the Earth's surface! If the distance from the surface is very small compared to the radius of the Earth, we can consider the force constant, and the object is under the influence of a constant downward acceleration.

If you make the tube very very long, the force and acceleration will vary. It will still always be pointing towards the center of the Earth, because gravity is attractive, but it will get larger as you approach Earth. None of this changes the fact that in the absence of air, i. It's pretty simple. However, that doesn't work in this case. The problem here is that there are two things I don't know.

I don't know the distance scale and I don't know the frame rate. This means I need another strategy. Luckily, the video shows the same bowling ball and feather dropping with air and in real time. I can use that to find the scale of the video.

In this case, I will use the close up shot that shows the bowling ball and I will find the diameter. If I use a bowling ball diameter of Here is a plot of the vertical motion of that first fall.

Of course this is using the free video analysis program Tracker. Also, remember that the kinematic equation for an object with a constant acceleration in the y-direction is:. So, a coefficient of This isn't 9. I can also get the total falling time from the video with a value of 2. This means that I can solve for the drop height of the ball. However, I ignored the air resistance on the bowling ball during this drop. Is that ok? Let's say the ball has a mass of 6 kg.

If you then create a numerical calculation for a falling ball both with and without air resistance, you get a time difference of just 0.