Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life

by Helen Czerski

Critical thinking is essential to make sense of our world, especially with advertisers and politicians all telling us loudly that they know best. We need to be able to look at the evidence and work out whether we agree with them.

Gravity does have one major advantage over all the other fundamental forces, though, and that’s its reach. It may be weak, and getting even weaker as you travel farther from Earth, but it stretches out across the vast distances of space, tugging on other planets and suns and galaxies. Each tug is tiny, but it’s this frail force field that gives our universe its structure.