did the apple fall to earth or did the earth rise to the apple?

Question

withholding air resistance, the spple was in free fall, therefor no force acting upon it, therefore it was motionless, and since the earth defies gravity it is, relatively speaking, in motion compared to space, so that would mean the earth rose to the apple....right?

Answer 1

Actually newtons law of universal gravity states that they move towards each other inversely proportional to the weight of both and the distances between their centre of masses.

However the apple weighs nothing and has a small radius whereas the earth has a huge radius and weight and will therefore move very little thereby the apple does most of the moving

Answer 2

Its possible the apple was pushed toward the earth, by radiation pressure.
It is known that the earths gravity drops as you reach the center of the earth. Why would this be?

Its possible that gravity comes from outside the planet, or is electromagnetic in nature.
Its a very interesting question, and an open one.

The standard model cannot even account for gravity, so its not stupid. Newton's law is just a description..it cannot explain why it happens. Read the first two pages of Pricipia..Even Newton himself says he is not sure.

Answer 3

Well the apple would've pulled on the earth but the effect would be negligible. The earth however would pull the apple toward it with much greater force. So I guess you could say both happened. Just that the apples effect is useless you're doing some experiment with quantum physics.

Answer 4

Kevin got it totally right with the proviso that "incredibly small degree" can be easily computed. The earth moved a distance equal to the apple's fall times the mass ratio of the apple/earth.

Coleridge, I don't know which is worse, your profanity or your stupidity.....

Answer 5

The gravitational force of the earth is stronger than that of the apple, the apple is attracted to the earth not the opposite.

Answer 6

In the earth's frame of reference, the apple fell. In the apple's frame of reference, the earth rose. However, it almost never makes sense to use the apple's frame of reference--for all practical purposes, the earth was still and the apple fell.

Answer 7

All objects have gravity.
If you have mass you have gravity.
In this case both things happened, but the Earth really slacked off on meeting the apple midway.

Answer 8

I think the earth is far too busy doing other important things than jump up and catch apples.

Answer 9

it actually is both, because it depends on which perspective you are using, but it could also be both because both are attracting each other, so the earth moved less(pretty much zero) towards the apple than the apple did towards the earth

Answer 10

both, actually, since all mass attracts other mass to itself, so the apple did fall to the earth, but to an incredibly small degree, the earth did move to meet it.