Feathers in a Vacuum

(YouTube link)

You know from Galileo’s experiment that falling objects will fall at the same speed, no matter their weight. The experiment falls apart when you use feathers, however, because they waft down rather than fall, because of air resistance. But what if you took the air out of the equation?

The  world’s largest vacuum chamber is in Cleveland, Ohio. Physicist Brian Cox visited to show us what a falling feather looks like in an environment without any air, so therefore no air resistance. The clip is from the BBC Two show Human Universe. -via Metafilter 


If you get a chance to take an intro physics course at a university of go to an outreach program, there might be a chance to see this in person. A smaller version is pretty common with two glass tubes, one with a ball bearing and the other a feather, and the air can be pumped out of them.

Either I strongly disagree with his interpretation of what relativity is saying, or he said it very poorly. While a key part of general relativity is that the effects of gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable from a closed box, it doesn't change that objects will still fall toward the Earth.
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