What does gravitation force mean…can we visualize that……and what is the extent of gravity?
Historically…Newton was the 1st to quantify gravity. While sitting under a tree thinking, an apple fell on his head! At that moment he realized that the force that kept us stuck to the earth, the SAME force that kept things in orbit! Newton came to realize and verify that gravitational force was proportional to the two masses of the attracting objects but inversely proportional to the square of their distance. Newton also recognized that though gravity gets much weaker with distance it still operates outwards to infinity! This ‘action to infinity’ bothered Newton…he was skeptical of a force that could “instantaneously” reach out and grab something. It is a tribute to his Genius that he was not only able to come up with a revolutionary new theory that stood the test of time and experiment for over 300 years but also was able to see a shortcoming in his own theory! Now we fast forward to Einstein in 1925 who radically redefined gravity with his general theory of relativity. Einstein
