In a spaceship accelerating at ?g?, far from Earth’s gravity, how does the motion of a dropped ball compare with the motion of a ball dropped at Earth’s surface?
Solution 2RQ Step 1 Provided, the spaceship far beyond the earth’s gravitational field is accelerating with an acceleration of “g”. So, there is no other external forces are acting upon the spaceship other than the force due to its acceleration. In earth’s gravitational field, if a ball is falling under the influence of gravitational force, its acceleration will be acceleration due to gravity and it will be towards the earth. So, in both cases, the force will be same and it will be, F = mg Where, “m” is the mass of the ball. According to Einstein’s equivalence principle, it is difficult to interpret about the acceleration and velocity of the accelerating system. The theory of relativity forbids us to talk about the absolute velocity of the accelerating system. So, it makes that, the free fall inside these frames of references will be same and there will not be any change in those due to these characteristics. Conclusion The motion of the dropped ball will be same in earth’s field and in spaceship accelerating with “g”.
