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Richard Panek: Everything you thought you knew about gravity is wrong

Say that to the average person, and the answer you'll probably get is some version of: "What are you talking about? Gravity is the force of attraction that makes things fall straight down." But say it to a physicist, and the answer you'll get is, "That's right."

I know, because those are the two answers I've been getting for the past few years, ever since I figured out that nobody knows what gravity is, and that just about nobody knows that nobody knows what gravity is. The exception is physicists: They know that nobody knows what gravity is, because they know that they don't know what gravity is.