I have been taught that acceleration due to gravity is affected by surface area and not mass. I still find it hard to believe that a situation like in my question would be possible?

If you are hit in the face by a cricket ball, would it be more painful at a distance of 50 centimetres from the thrower's hand, or 5 metres? To put it another way, at what point does the ball start decelerating?

Neil Christie, Adstock, Buckinghamshire, UK

If, as I understand it, relativity prescribes that being inside a uniformly accelerating object is indistuingishable from a gravitational field, yet a gravitational field follows the inverse square law, does that mean the further you are from the accelerating end of the object, the weaker the accelration you would feel, following the inverse square law?