A cork, say from a wine bottle, is held by a robotic clamp at the bottom of a bucket of water and released the moment the bucket is dropped off the side of a tall building. What will happen to the cork during the fall? Will it float to the top of the bucket normally, slower than normal, faster than normal, or not at all?
Assume that there is no air resistance to slow the bucket down.
Under normal gravitational conditions, the cork would float to the top because the water is denser. The speed the cork moves to the top of the bucket relative to the force the water is displacing it with. Since there is no force of gravity acting on the bucket or its contents during free fall, the cork should not float. If the cork were floating to begin with it would not sink either.
Density
