Sir Isaac Newton is credited with the discovery of gravity. In the late 17th century, he formulated the law of universal gravitation, which describes the attractive force between two masses. According to his theory, the strength of this force is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Although gravity was known before Newton, he provided a comprehensive mathematical framework that explained the motion of celestial bodies and laid the foundation for classical mechanics.