As we all know, if we fall while walking, we will feel pain or even get injured. However, ants can fall from a very high place without getting hurt. Do you know the secret behind this? It turns out that all objects moving in the air are affected by air resistance, and the magnitude of the resistance is greatly related to the surface area of the object. Under normal circumstances, the magnitude of air resistance is proportional to the air resistance coefficient and the frontal area, and is proportional to the square of the speed. Microscopic objects are small in mass and light in weight, and their surface area is relatively large. Therefore, compared with dense heavy objects, the ratio of the resistance to the weight of microscopic light objects is larger. According to Newton's second law, air resistance is easily balanced with the weight of the object, and may even be greater than the weight, eventually making the object fall more and more slowly.
Air resistance determines the falling speed
Therefore, ants falling from a high place can fall at a very slow speed in the air. The impulse of the ant's interaction with the ground is also small, so the impact force from the ground is also very small. In addition, ants have a small body size and relatively high strength, so the damage to their bodies from the ground impact is small. In this way, ants can fall safely to the ground without getting hurt.