How is it that bugs take no fall damage?
In: Physics
There’s a very useful thought tool called “squares versus cubes”. The idea is that if one property is proportional to the square of something, and another property is related to the cube of something, you can pretty much ignore everything else.
In this case, the mass an object (an insect, in this case, but the same applies to all objects) is roughly proportional to the cube of its length, because stuff on the inside has mass. And the drag that an object experiences is roughly proportional to the square of its length, since it’s only the leading surface that has to push through air.
So the bigger a thing gets, the less drag matters, and conversely, the smaller a thing gets, the more drag matters. Bugs, being very small, are greatly slowed by the air they’re falling through because the ratio of their mass (which gravity pulls against) to their area (which wind pushes against) is small.
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