GRAVITY, THE MYSTERIOUS FORCE

It’s a force we feel the effects of every day, but it’s also the most enigmatic. Marcus Chown takes a wry look at the contradictory nature of gravity

We find out how the force that keeps our feet on the ground is also one of the most confusing.

Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it is the strongest force in the Universe. It was the first force to be recognised and described yet it is the least understood. It is a force that keeps your feet on the ground yet no such force actually exists. Gravity, to borrow the words of Winston Churchill, is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. Any way you look at it, gravity seems bonkers – are these its oddest quirks?