[eli5] When resultant forces are equal on a falling object, why does the object still fall

Question

When weight acting downwards is equal to air resistance acting upwards why is the object falling???

In: 0

Answer 1

Forces act on acceleration, not speed. If the resulting force is 0, that means the acceleration is also 0 but it says nothing about the speed of the object. All you can know is that whatever speed it’s at, is constant. For a falling object being affected by gravity and drag, that speed is the terminal velocity