A quick question...

[Jon_in_london]

According my very poor 1st year physics, a dropped object will accelerate at 9.8ms^2 (approx). Does this mean that if I drop a brick, one second later, it would have fallen 9.8 metres?

 

[ZeeGerman]

According my very poor 1st year physics, a dropped object will accelerate at 9.8ms^2 (approx). Does this mean that if I drop a brick, one second later, it would have fallen 9.8 metres?

Nope.

It means that after one second the brick will have reached a velocity of 9.8 m/s according to v = g*t.

The distance covered is the integral of the velocity over time i.e.

s = 0.5*g*t^2

which means that your brick will have fallen 4.9 meters after one second.

Zee