We dropped both pieces of paper at the same time. The tightly folded one hit the floor first.

How this works

When an object is dropped, the force of gravity will cause it to speed up as it falls. But friction with the air, called drag, will tend to cause it to slow down. How much drag there is depends mostly on two factors:

1. Speed: The faster an object moves through air the more drag there is.
2. Shape: A compact object experiences less drag than an object of the same mass that is spread out.

As a falling object speeds up, drag increases until it is equal to gravity. At that point, the object continues to fall at a constant speed, called terminal velocity. The tightly folded piece of paper experiences less drag than the loosely crumpled piece. The balance between gravity and drag occurs at a lower speed, a lower terminal velocity, for the crumpled paper.

		Digging Deeper
		Find out more about
	air resistance.

For a more detailed explanation look at the Digging Deeper about this Science Lab activity.

Try this:

Take loosely crumpled paper and crumple it a bit more tightly. How does this affect the speed with which it falls?