You take something, and you drop it. You measure how fast it accelerates. It’s that simple.
All masses accelerate due to gravity at the same rate (if you ignore air resistance).
F=mg
F=GMm/r^2
mg=GMm/r^2
g=GM/r^2
gravitational acceleration = constant * mass of Earth / radius of Earth^2
It doesn’t depend on the mass of what you drop.
With the initial setup running the same experiment all over Earth, we can even see how gravity varies all over the planet. Canada and the Indian Ocean have lower gravity than most of the rest of the world.
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