Determining Earth’s gravitational acceleration by free fall method with the presence of air resistance

Abstract

Abstract We show that the gravitational acceleration g near Earth’s surface can be easily determined with high accuracy by conducting the usual free fall experiment in high school or college physics laboratories. Unlike the conventional method of data analysis that uses formulas without taking air resistance into account, we consider the effect of air drag and solve the position function for the free falling object. The position function is then used to fit the experimental data and thus, determine the value of g. The average value of the determined g is found to differ from the gravitational field measured by gravimeters near the experimental site by 0.2%.