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The bowling ball isn’t falling to the earth faster. The higher perceived acceleration is due to the earth falling toward the bowling ball.
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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You said the two objects accelerate at the same rate, but then in the PS you said the feather gets accelerated faster. What do you mean?
Are you saying the feather gets pulled on more because the mass of earth minus feather is greater than the mass of earth minus ball? You would be right. If you lift the feather, measure how long it takes to fall, then lift the ball and measure, you should get the same number. This meme was assuming you either let them fall side by side, or measure them separately but each time conjure the object out of thin air.
Both accelerate at the same rate relative to the earth (the bowling ball accelerates slightly slower relative to some outside point, but it accelerates the earth slightly more towards it, resulting in the same relative acceleration to the earth as the feather)
Newton's second law works in inertial frames. The acceleration of both objects would be the same in the inertial frame. But in the inertial frame, the earth would accelerate faster toward the object if the object was a bowling ball than if it was a feather.