What would happen? Would the water hit the roof of the elevator since the elevator is falling rapidly?
I thought about it when I put Eye Drops in an elevator.
In: Physics
This thread has a lot of overcomplicated answers that make a bunch of assumptions.
If you are in a free falling elevator and you disregard friction, you are accelerating at 9.8m/s^2, which is gravitational acceleration (1g). The water in this case would float in mid air as though you’re in space. This is the same principle as zero-g airplane flights, which enter a free fall to simulate a zero-g environment for a short period.
The reason this happens is because when you’re holding your bottle of water in the free falling elevator, it’s already accelerating downward at 1g. Pouring it out doesn’t make it fall any faster. It will continue accellerating at 1g, but it will be outside the bottle. If the elevator comes to a stop, the water will fall to the floor.
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