Question: How does gravity work?

Shreesha Bhat answered on 17 Mar 2015:

Its a mystery till today how it works, Maddy. Although, scientists like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein have managed to give theories explaining it.

According to Newton, gravity was a predictable force that acts on all matter in the universe, and is a function of both mass and distance. That would mean any two particles can attract each other through gravitational force which can be calculated by the famous formula (=m1 x m2/d square) m are the masses and d is the distance.

On the other hand, Einstein didn’t believe gravity was a force at all; he said it was a distortion in the shape of space-time, otherwise known as “the fourth dimension”. What he means by distortion in space-time is–i will try to explain in a simple manner. Lets say there are two balls going parallel to each other,now as per basic physics, unless you apply force, they will not collide with each other, ever, right? But, we see cases where they collide. Newton said it is gravitational force, Einstein says it is gravitation, but not a force, is is a curve in space-time. It is due to the distortion of the path, instead of straight line, it becomes a sphere, and that causes the collision.

So, these theories are there out which try to explain about gravity, but we do not have definite proof of why it is there yet!