Gravity Part 3

The apple is still hanging on the tree because of the stem, but gravity is acting on it to make it want to do ... what? Gravity is exerting a force on the apple to make it want to pick up speed in the vertical (up-down) direction. The apple is in the GRIP of gravity's power. The apple wants to pick up a speed of 32 feet per second DOWNWARDS for every second that it hangs there, but the stem stops it.

Note what you also might forget: The force of gravity doesn't also want the apple to change its speed horizontally. Gravity wants it to keep its speed of 0 in the horizontal directions; it only wants it to fall straight down, picking up a speed of an additional 32 feet per second for every second it falls.

In shorthand, we say that gravity acts to accelerate the apple down at a rate of 32, and accelerate at a rate of 0 horizontally. (That is the motion predicted by both Newton and Einstein's equations from the mathematics of their theories of gravity).