The equivalence principle is the hypothesis that the observed equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass is a consequence of nature. The weak form, known for centuries, relates to masses of any composition in free fall taking the same trajectories and landing at identical times. The extended form by Albert Einstein requires special relativity to also hold in free fall and requires the weak equivalence to be valid everywhere. This form was a critical input for the development of the theory of general relativity. The strong form requires Einstein's form to work for stellar objects. Highly precise experimental tests of the principle limit possible deviations from equivalence to be very small.

In classical mechanics, Newton's equation of motion in a gravitational field, written out in full, is:

Careful experiments have shown that the inertial mass on the left side and gravitational mass on the right side are numerically equal and independent of the material composing the masses. The equivalence principle is the hypothesis that this numerical equality of inertial and gravitational mass is a consequence of their fundamental identity.

The equivalence principle can be considered an extension of the principle of relativity, the principle that the laws of physics are invariant under uniform motion. An observer in a windowless room cannot distinguish between being on the surface of the Earth and being in a spaceship in deep space accelerating at 1g and the laws of physics are unable to distinguish these cases.

In Newton's law of gravity, the equivalence principle is viewed as an observation, an accident of nature encoded in empirical law. In Einstein's model of gravity, the equivalence principle is a consequence of physics. The same mass both causes and responds to gravity: mass causes spacetime curvature and then moves through spacetime according to that curvature.

By experimenting with the acceleration of different materials, Galileo Galilei determined that gravitation is independent of the amount of mass being accelerated.

Isaac Newton, just 50 years after Galileo, investigated whether gravitational and inertial mass might be different concepts. He compared the periods of pendulums composed of different materials and found them to be identical. From this, he inferred that gravitational and inertial mass are the same thing. The form of this assertion, where the equivalence principle is taken to follow from empirical consistency, later became known as "weak equivalence".

A version of the equivalence principle consistent with special relativity was introduced by Albert Einstein in 1907, when he observed that identical physical laws are observed in two systems, one subject to a constant gravitational field causing acceleration and the other subject to constant acceleration, like a rocket far from any gravitational field. Since the physical laws are the same, Einstein assumed the gravitational field and the acceleration were "physically equivalent". Einstein stated this hypothesis by saying he would: