Spiders don’t have wings, but they can fly across entire oceans on long strands of silk. For more than a century, scientists thought it was the wind that carried them, but a new study shows the Earth’s electric field can propel these flying arachnids too.
That’s part of it yes. Also gravity is proportional to mass, so smaller things will experience less force due to gravity. Everything will still fall with the same acceleration (9.8 m/s^2 on earth) ((ignoring air resistance)), but the impact from hitting the ground will be a lot easier to handle for small creatures. For example, an ant can survive a fall from pretty much any height, while an elephant can’t even fall a few feet without getting hurt.
Fun fact: Once you get to a small enough scale, it’s safe to just ignore gravity altogether, since it’s so much weaker than other forces like electromagnetism.
… you are right the Force a mass experiences in a gravitational Field is proportional to its mass. And this equation reminds me of the force exerted on a charged particle in an electric field:
F = q*E
The force a charged particle with charge q experiences in an electric field is proportional to its charge.
Most spiders can go a long time without eating, and most are too small to be killed from falling to the ground
hm … how far of a fall can ants survive? Is it because of their low body-mass compared to their surface area?
That’s part of it yes. Also gravity is proportional to mass, so smaller things will experience less force due to gravity. Everything will still fall with the same acceleration (9.8 m/s^2 on earth) ((ignoring air resistance)), but the impact from hitting the ground will be a lot easier to handle for small creatures. For example, an ant can survive a fall from pretty much any height, while an elephant can’t even fall a few feet without getting hurt.
Fun fact: Once you get to a small enough scale, it’s safe to just ignore gravity altogether, since it’s so much weaker than other forces like electromagnetism.
F = m*g… you are right the Force a mass experiences in a gravitational Field is proportional to its mass. And this equation reminds me of the force exerted on a charged particle in an electric field:
F = q*EThe force a charged particle with charge q experiences in an electric field is proportional to its charge.