Mass, Weight and Free Fall

Core concept

Free fall describes the motion of an object falling under the influence of gravity alone, with no other forces (like air resistance) acting on it — in a true vacuum, all objects fall at the same rate regardless of their mass, since gravitational acceleration (approximately 9.8 m/s² on Earth) affects all masses equally. In reality, air resistance often makes lighter or less streamlined objects, like a feather, fall slower than denser objects like a stone, unless the fall occurs in a vacuum.