Question

Describe how mass affects the final velocity an object attains as it falls

Answer 1

The speed of a falling object is not affected by the mass of the object (exluding air resistance).
Two objects of different mass (disregarding air resistance) will both accelerate at the same rate. This means that their speeds at equal instants will both be the same. This was discovered by Galileo. HIs experiments dropping or rolling objects of different mass showed that gravity does not pull different mass objects at different rates.
Newtons second law states that
F
=
m
a
. This means that if both accelerate at the same rate, then the force acting on objects of different mass must be different (
F
is proportional to
m
) and the greater the mass, the greater the force of gravity that is acting on the object.

Answer 2

SHORT ANSWER: Mass does not affect the velocity of a falling object.
LONG ANSWER: To my knowledge, mass does not affect the final velocity of an object, just surface area, if there is air or other particles to get in the way. So, basically, if you had two cubes of the same size, and one was made of solid aluminium, and the other was made of lead, even though the lead would be significantly heavier, they would hit the floor when dropped at the same time, all other variables the same. So, mass has no affect on velocity attained from gravity.