Patterns of injury in a fatal BASE jumping accident

Barbara C Wolf1, Brett E Harding

  • 1Office of the District 21 Medical Examiner, Fort Myers, Florida, USA. barbaracwolf@aol.com

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All objects, neglecting air resistance, fall with the same acceleration towards the Earth's center due to the force exerted by the Earth's gravity. This experimentally determined fact is unexpected because we are so accustomed to the effects of air resistance and friction that we expect light objects to fall slower than heavier ones. People believed that a heavier object had a greater acceleration when falling until Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) proved otherwise. We now know this is not the case.
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