Evolution of scientific ideas
Teaching Guidance
for 11-14
Evolving ideas of gravity
Here is an opportunity to demonstrate to pupils that scientific concepts are the products of the scientific community and therefore may evolve with time.
Aristotle suggested things fell to Earth because it was their natural place
.
For Newton there were invisible threads linking all objects together.
A totally different approach was suggested by Einstein. He linked gravity to a distortion in the shape of space itself.
A current speculative idea is that invisible exchange particles
called gravitons pass between all objects and that these somehow are responsible for transmitting the gravitational force effect.
Physics never stands still.
