I know it has to do something with mass, but i’m clueless.
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Terminal velocity is the top speed that something can achieve while falling through something (air, in this case). It’s mainly based on two things: the force of drag, or the force restraining the falling object (in this case, air resistance) and the force of gravity, or the downward force pulling the object downward (in this case, directly related to the weight of the object). When these two forces balance each other out, whatever is falling reaches terminal velocity, meaning that they won’t pick up any more speed, so they will continue to fall at the same rate.
In the case of an ant vs a human falling, in both cases we can think of the force of drag, or the air resistance, being same- both the human and the ant are falling through air. However, the ant weighs much less than a human does, so the force of gravity on the ant, or the downward pull as it falls, will be much less. So as an ant falls, it is likely that it will be light enough to reach terminal velocity, which will be slower than a humans terminal velocity would be because the weight value to balance out is so much less. However, the human is going to continue picking up speed and would have to fall much further and be falling much faster to reach terminal velocity.
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