Question

What type of motion is exhibited by a freely falling body?

Answer 1

Hint There are different types of motions in physics. There are uniform and non-uniform motions. Periodic and non-periodic motions, linear and non-linear motions and it goes on. Here we have to identify the type of motion shown by a freely falling body.

Complete Step by step solution
A freely falling body is moving under the acceleration due to gravity. Since the acceleration due to gravity is constant the body will be accelerated uniformly. The value of acceleration is not changing as a function of time in this case. Thus we can say that a freely falling body is having a uniformly accelerated motion.

The answer is: uniformly accelerated motion.

Additional information
There will be a variation in the value of acceleration due to gravity as the place varies. This is because the shape of the earth is not perfectly spherical. The acceleration due to gravity and the radius of the Earth is inversely proportional to each other. The radius of the earth will be minimum at the poles and therefore the acceleration due to gravity will be maximum. At the equator, the radius of the earth will be maximum and therefore the acceleration due to gravity will be minimum. At the centre of the earth, the acceleration due to gravity is zero because the radius of the earth is zero at the centre. Therefore objects will be weightless at the centre of the earth.

Note
Acceleration due to gravity is the acceleration experienced by a body falling freely towards the surface of the earth. This is due to the gravitational attraction of the earth. The value of acceleration due to gravity is taken to be constant on the surface of the Earth.