b_rubenstein wrote:
> Shel Belinkoff asked:
>> Do raindrops always fall at the same
>> speed (thinking of early experiments with falling objects, gravity)?
>
> Rain, down where you would be photographing it, will be pretty much falling
> at a constant velocity. Gravity (constant acceleration) is only for the case
> of objects falling in a vacuum.
Not sure whether that was the question, or whether he meant
to ask about the speed of raindrops in different storms.
The size of the raindrop will affect its terminal velocity
(shape too, but in the case of raindrops that's determined
by the size anyhow), so small raindrops will fall at a
different speed than large ones. An example of the extreme
case of this: if the drops get small enough, they barely
fall at all, and you get mist instead of really rainy rain.
As BR pointed out, all of this goes out the window in a
vacuum (yeah, yeah, imagery inadvertent but cute enough
to leave in anyhow), where size and shape no loner matter
and there's no terminal velocity so things keep accellerating
until they hit.
Completely off-topic trivia: terminal velocity for a human
(in air, in Earth gravity) in spread-eagle position is
somewhere around 70 MPH. I'm not sure, but I think I heard
it's about double that for a streamlined headfirst dive. (And
a Hell of a lot slower after pulling the doohickey that lets
the parachute open, of course.)
-- Glenn
