Chapter 13, Problem 31A

Stephan says that the force of gravity is stronger on a piece of paper after it’s crumpled. His classmates disagree, so Stephan 'proves' his point by dropping two pieces of paper, one crumpled and the other not. Sure enough, the crumpled piece falls faster. Has Stephan proven his point? Explain.

To determine

To identify: Whether person S has proven his point or not.

Explanation of Solution

Introduction:

When an object is falling towards the ground, it starts gaining the speed. Because of this, increase in the speed the air resistance increases and balances the force of gravity.

Here, the force of gravity will be same on both the papers. Only the difference is initially plain sheet of paper is taken and then the same paper is crumbled. The idea here would be in case of plain sheet of paper the paper would be experiencing more air resistance force as compared to the crumbled paper, when both are falling down together. So, time required by the sheet of paper to reach the ground will be more as compared to the crumbled paper one.

Conclusion:

So, here experiment was correct but could not be explained it properly.