Why is g 9.81 m/s/s?

We measure how strong Earth’s pull is by using gravity, and that number, 9.81 m/s², tells us just how fast things fall.

Imagine you're on a slide at the park. When you let go, you start slow, but then you pick up speed as you zoom down. That's kind of like what happens when something falls, it starts from rest and gets faster every second because gravity is constantly pulling it down.

Now think about Earth itself. It’s huge! So big that even though we're tiny compared to it, we still feel its pull strongly. If you drop a ball, it doesn't just float gently down, it speeds up as it goes, gaining about 9.81 meters per second every second until it hits the ground.

Well, gravity isn’t always perfectly round or smooth, Earth is kind of like a squashed orange. It's slightly fatter around the middle and flatter at the poles. So depending on where you are, gravity might be just a little bit more or less than 9.81 m/s².

But for most everyday things, like playing catch or jumping in the air, we use 9.81 as it’s close enough to make our lives easier! We measure how strong Earth’s pull is by using gravity, and that number, 9.81 m/s², tells us just how fast things fall.

Imagine you're on a slide at the park. When you let go, you start slow, but then you pick up speed as you zoom down. That's kind of like what happens when something falls, it starts from rest and gets faster every second because gravity is constantly pulling it down.

Now think about Earth itself. It’s huge! So big that even though we're tiny compared to it, we still feel its pull strongly. If you drop a ball, it doesn't just float gently down, it speeds up as it goes, gaining about 9.81 meters per second every second until it hits the ground.