Gravity, the most familiar of nature’s forces, offers us simultaneously the best and the least understood phenomena in nature. It took the mind of the millennium’s most brilliant and influential person, Isaac Newton, to realize that gravity’s mysterious “action-at-a-distance” arises from the natural effects of every bit of matter, and that the attractive force between any two objects can be described by a simple algebraic equation. It took the mind of the last century’s most brilliant and influential person, Albert Einstein, to show that we can more accurately describe gravity’s action-at-a-distance as a warp in the fabric of space-time, produced by any combination of matter and energy. Einstein demonstrated that Newton’s theory requires some modification to describe gravity accurately—to predict, for example, how much light rays will bend when they pass by a massive object. Although Einstein’s equations are fancier than Newton’s, they nicely accommodate the matter that we have come to know and love. Matter that we can see, touch, feel, smell, and occasionally taste.

Gravity, the most familiar of nature’s forces, offers us simultaneously the best
and the least understood phenomena in nature. It took the mind of the millennium’s
most brilliant and influential person, Isaac Newton, to realize that gravity’s
mysterious “action-at-a-distance” arises from the natural effects of every bit of
matter, and that the attractive force between any two objects can be described by a
simple algebraic equation. It took the mind of the last century’s most brilliant and
influential person, Albert Einstein, to show that we can more accurately describe
gravity’s action-at-a-distance as a warp in the fabric of space-time, produced by
any combination of matter and energy. Einstein demonstrated that Newton’s theory
requires some modification to describe gravity accurately—to predict, for
example, how much light rays will bend when they pass by a massive object.
Although Einstein’s equations are fancier than Newton’s, they nicely accommodate
the matter that we have come to know and love. Matter that we can see, touch,
feel, smell, and occasionally taste.