Video narration
Did Newton discover gravity when an apple fell? The apple story doesn't capture a single sudden discovery, and it never says the fruit hit Newton's head. In the 1660s, Newton considered a dropped object: Earth pulls it down. Did that same pull reach the Moon? But Newton asked whether the Moon, too, was falling toward Earth. Here was the leap: the Moon is falling under Earth's pull, while moving sideways fast enough to keep missing the ground. That sideways motion keeps it circling Earth, rather than crashing down. Newton developed the idea over time, connecting earthly falls with the motion of the heavens. He later described it in the law of universal gravitation: one pull acting between objects, on Earth and beyond. So how did Newton discover gravity? He saw the same pull drop an object and reach the Moon, whose sideways motion keeps it falling around Earth.