Velocity And Acceleration In Free Fall

This animation tracks an object dropped near Earth's surface, showing how its velocity increases linearly over time while acceleration stays constant at 9.8 m/s^2. Side-by-side graphs of position, velocity, and acceleration versus time update as the object falls, making the relationship between these quantities visible. Useful for introductory physics students learning kinematics and how calculus connects position, velocity, and acceleration through derivatives.

16:9 · Preview before teaching · automatic layout checks do not establish subject accuracy

The prompt that made it

Visualize acceleration and velocity in a free fall

Make your own version

Make the next one in this series

• Compare free fall with and without air resistance using terminal velocity
• Show projectile motion by adding horizontal velocity to free fall
• Derive the kinematic equations for free fall using calculus step by step

Related animations

Snell's law: light bends toward the normal in glass

A light ray travels from air into glass, bending according to n1 sin(theta1) = n2 sin(theta2). As the incident…

Conservation of energy: a pendulum trades height for speed

An animated pendulum swings back and forth while live bar graphs track kinetic and potential energy at every i…

Simple harmonic motion: spring, mass, sine wave

A block attached to a spring oscillates back and forth while its position x(t) = A cos(omega t) is traced live…

Exponential decay: every half-life halves what is left

Bars shrinking from 100% to 50%, 25%, 12.5%, and 6.25% illustrate how a radioactive sample loses the same frac…

Projectile motion: two independent motions

An animation of a ball launched at an angle, splitting its motion into a constant horizontal velocity and a ve…