Question

A shoe and a shirt are released from the same height They take diffferent amounts of time to fall to the ground How can this be explained? (†

The masses of the two objects are the same, but they are affected differently by air resistance
The weight is equal on the two objects, but there is more air resistance on the shoe
The difference in weight doesn't affect the time, but they are affected differently by air resistance
The weight is greater on the shoe than on the shirt, but there is equal air resistance on the objects

Answer 1

The difference in weight doesn't affect the time, but they are affected differently by air resistance.

Step-by-step explanation:

Theoretically, without air resistance, everything would fall at the same speed and hit the ground at the same time when released from the same height. This is due to gravity affecting everything the same, and can be seen in a clip of astronauts dropping both a feather and hammer on the moon at the same time.

Since the moon has nearly no atmosphere to contain gases in, air resistance is negligible on the moon, which is why the two fall to the ground at the same speed.

Unfortunately we live in the real world and on Earth where air resistance is present in both, so an object with a greater cross sectional area would fall to the ground slower than another object with the same mass. In this case, the t-shirt has a greater area and therefore will encounter more air resistance since it "bumps" into more air molecules on the way down than the shoe would.