Free Fall Calculator
Calculate fall time and impact velocity from height, ignoring air resistance.
Free fall describes the motion of an object dropped from a height under the influence of gravity alone, with no air resistance. This idealized model is fundamental to classical mechanics and provides surprisingly accurate results for dense, compact objects.
The time to fall a given height is: t = sqrt(2h / g), where g is the acceleration due to gravity (9.80665 m/s²). The velocity at impact is: v = sqrt(2gh). These equations were first described by Galileo and formalized by Newton.
An object dropped from 50 meters takes about 3.19 seconds to hit the ground and reaches approximately 31.3 m/s (113 km/h). In reality, air resistance limits the speed of falling objects to a terminal velocity that depends on mass, shape, and cross-sectional area.