I know it has to do something with mass, but i’m clueless.
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When something falls through the air it is being pulled by gravity alone. The air itself also provides some upward force as it needs to move out of the way. The faster something falls the harder it is for air to get out of the way and the harder that air will push back. Eventually they will equal out. We call this “terminal velocity”
In order for the air to push back on us as much as we would falling through it we need to go 120mph. An ant equals out to about 4mph. Once an ant reaches that speed of 4mph gravity can’t pull it though air any faster. If we were to fall at 4mph we would be fine too because 4mph is a fast walking pace for an average human.
Why the difference? Well it’s because of the square cubed law. That is if you take any three dimensional object and double its surface area, you will in turn quadruple its volume. In a practical sense this kind of means making an animal 2x as big means you also make it 4x as heavy. Meaning it will take more speed when falling to eventually equal out and reach terminal velocity.
So if an ant were the size of a human it would likely fall at close to 120mph and if a human were the size of an ant we’d fall at close to 4mph.
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