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What silly question is that? The movie released in 2013. It has won 7 Oscar awards. Who wouldn’t know about that?

Because, I am talking about the Gravity, which makes you sleep comfortable on your bed, rather than keeping you float in the air.

Jokes apart!

## What is gravity?

To explain in simple,

It is an attractive force between two masses.

Right now, you are reading this post on your gadget ( be it a smartphone/ laptop / PC). If there is no gravity, probably your gadget will be floating on air, and you will be chasing your gadget in the air.

Now, you come to know what is gravity. It’s the one that attracts you to the Earth.

## Then, what is the gravitational force?

Be it gravity or gravitational force or gravitation. They all mean the same.

## So, who discovered gravity?

Gravitation was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. When an apple fell on Newton’s head, he thought something different, than others. Why did the apple fell down? It could have fly upwards, right?

After years of research, Newton understood that it was Earth, which attracted the apple down. This attraction is what called as gravitational force.

If you are interested in Newton’s discovery of Gravitation, watch this video below.

## Do, we come across gravity in our everyday life?

In our everyday life, we come across gravity. Like,

• When a cricketer hits the ball high, it comes down for a catch. If there was no gravity, the ball would have flown away.

• You write on paper often. If there was no gravity, the ink from your pen would be floating in the air and does not stick to the paper.

These are just a few examples of gravity in our everyday life. There are lots more.

So, gravity is a part of our everyday life.

## But, how do we calculate these gravitational forces?

To calculate gravitational force, we can make use of this formula,

${F = G\frac{\substack{{m_1}{m_2}}}{\substack{r^2}}}$

Where,

${F}$
– is the Gravitational force,

${G}$
– is the Gravitational constant

${{m_1},{m_2}}$
– are the masses of the two objects

${r}$
– is the distance the two objects

Making use of this formula, you can calculate the gravitational force between two objects.

## But still, what causes gravity?

Every body has its own gravitational field. The Earth has its own, we human beings have our own. Even a cricket ball has its own.

Seriously?

But, I haven’t felt a cricket ball having gravitational force till now.

## Why don’t we feel the gravitational force?

The reason is that gravitational force depends upon two important things:

1. Mass of the two objects
2. Distance between the two objects

From the formula, I showed you above, gravitational force directly depends upon the masses. So, the greater the masses, greater is the gravitational force.

Also, we noticed gravitational force varies inversely as the square of the distance between the two objects. So, as we keep on increasing the distance between the two objects, the lesser, the gravitational force between them.

The Earth’s gravitational force is very high towards human compared to human’s gravitational force towards a ball. That’s why we don’t feel our gravitational force towards objects.

For better understanding, here is a video from LMES. The audio is Tamil. No subtitles are available as of now.

## What do you think about gravity?

So, in this post, you learned about gravity. To summarize what is the gravitational force, it is simply an attractive force between two objects, that depends upon the masses of the two objects and the distance between them.

I have mentioned few examples of gravitation, in this post. If you have more examples, post them in the comments section.

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