FREEFALL Lecture Notes 1 FREELY FALLING OBJECTS Free fall Acceleration If the only force on an object is its weight , the object is said to be freely falling, regardless of the direction of motion. All freely falling objects (heavy or light) have the same acceleration downward , due to gravity. In problem solving we generally take g = 10 m /s2 for simplicity. Downward Upward Problem solving strategy: 1) First choose (+) and (-) directions. Generally direction of initial velocity is taken as plus. 2) Choose zero level 3) We can use all the old formulas, only replacing a by g. Ex: A stone is dropped is dropped from 100 m above the ground. Find its velocity and height 3 s later. Note: ?y does not give