A student wrote: “The only reason an apple falls downward to meet the earth instead of the earth rising upward to meet the apple is that the earth is much more massive and so exerts a much greater pull.” Please comment.

The gravitational pull exerted by the Earth's mass on all bodies in the vicinity of its surface.

$F=G\frac{m_1{m}_2}{r^2}$

To put it another way, when two bodies contact, they exert equal-but-opposing pressures on one another. Rule of action and response is another name for this third law.

The gravitational force exerted by the earth on the apple will have the same magnitude but will differ in direction from the gravitational force exerted by the apple on earth. The force can be given as,

$$\begin{gathered} F=ma \\ a=\frac{F}{m} \end{gathered}$$

We can say that acceleration is inversely proportional to the object's mass. So, an apple having a smaller mass will show larger acceleration. Earth having greater mass will have less acceleration.

Thus, the apple falls downward to meet the earth instead of the earth rising upward to meet the apple is that the earth's massive mass, and due to this, the earth exerts a much greater pull.