Gravity, Push or Pull

Question:

Does it push or pull? My teacher says that it pushes us down. I thought that it pulls us down.

Answer:

We normally think of gravity as an attractive force so in that sense "pull" is perhaps the better word to use. In fact objects are accelerated by the distortion of space in their neighborhood caused by large masses like stars and planets. We interpret this movement as the result of a force field emanating from the large mass and call it gravity. To be technically correct the force is neither a pull nor a push toward the large mass but a squeeze applied by the nearby space.