10 Things Absolutely Nobody Knows The Answer To

4. How Gravity Works

Everybody knows the story of how Isaac Newton got clonked on the head with an apple and, instead of tweeting about it or perhaps Instagramming a photo of the offending fruit, it inspired him to come up with his the theory of gravity. You know, gravity. The force that keeps us rooted firmly to the Earth, keeps the Earth firmly in orbit of the Sun, and makes everything in our solar system work the way it should.

Gravity is an unquestioned, unimpeachable certainty, something we're taught about in primary school and just take as a given since. That's despite the fact that we have no idea how it works. Nada. Zilch. Other synonyms. Newton didn't discover gravity, per se, but he was the first to put a name to it. But even he didn't have a full understanding as to why this bundle of opposing forces existed in the first place. And, to be fair, he did live in a pre-social media age, so he didn't have Brian Cox to explain it to him, whilst being all handsome and stuff.

Wait, Brian Cox doesn't know either?! Gravity is an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a physicists nightmare. Nobody can explain how it can be so weak and so strong at the same time, keeping us earthbound but also flinging things around in space, and easily conquered by planes and NASA shuttles and the like. Gravity is the most powerful force in the universe, but also the weakest. The weirdest thing about gravity is that it doesn't even exist on a sub-atomic level. That's despite the entirety of existence being made of flipping atoms.

So gravity applies to everything in the universe, but not the things that make up the universe in the first place? That Sandra Bullock film seems downright relaxing right now.