this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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Science Memes

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Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

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If you are here asking: "Is this a science meme?"

Probably, yes. We use the Dawkins definition of meme: a replicating idea, not just an image macro with a fact on it. A good post here doesn't need to teach you something. It needs to make you ask something: who, what, where, when, and especially why or how.

Science isn't a filing cabinet of facts, it's a conversation. For example, a photo of an eel or other localized wildlife counts because most people never see one, and wonder is the first step of inquiry. A car meme counts if it makes you curious about what's under the bonnet. If you want to talk about something you noticed in the world, chances are someone else wants to talk about it too.

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yeah everything is probably made of like, idk, earth water, fire and air or something idrk (mander.xyz)
submitted 9 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ah, I'm not saying there's a different force being applied to feather vs. hammer. The meme above doesn't mean that they "fall faster" in the sense that the hammer falls at a higher velocity. It's rather colloquial usage of "faster" to mean "finishes sooner". Because what does happen, is that the hammer collides sooner with Earth, since the hammer pulls the Earth towards itself ever-so-slightly stronger than the feather does.

I guess, for this to work, you cannot drop hammer and feather at the same time in the same place, since they would both pull Earth towards themselves with a combined force. You need to drop them one after another for the stronger pull of the hammer to have an effect.

So, this is also going off of this formula:

F = G * mass_1 * mass_2 / distance²

But setting mass_1 as Earth's mass and mass_2 as either the feather's or hammer's mass. A higher mass_2 ultimately leads to a higher force of attraction F.

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

So in that equation, let's say mass 1 is earth. G and distance will be equal in both instances of dropping.

Rewrite equation:

Distance^2/ G*mass 1 = mass 2 /force

And

Distance^2/ G*mass 1 = mass 3 /force

Therefore,

Mass 2 /force = mass 3 /force

F = m*a

Mass 2 / mass 2*a = mass 3 / mass 3 * a

This cancels out to show that a = a, their acceleration is the same.