It is often said that a young Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when he got hit on the head by a falling piece of fruit, which prompted him to suddenly come up with his law of gravity, so goes the legend.
In reality, things didn’t go down quite like that. Newton, the son of a farmer, was born in 1642 near Grantham, England, and entered Cambridge University in 1661. Four years later, following an outbreak of the bubonic plague, the school temporarily closed, forcing Newton to move back to his childhood home, Woolsthorpe Manor.
It was during this period at Woolsthorpe (Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667) that he was in the orchard, and witnessed an apple drop from a tree. There’s no evidence to suggest the fruit actually landed on his head, but Newton’s observation caused him to ponder why apples always fall straight to the ground (rather than sideways or upward) and helped inspire him to eventually develop his law of universal gravitation.
In 1687, Newton first published this principle, which states that every body in the universe is attracted to every other body with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them, in his landmark work the “Principia,” which also features his three laws of motion. I am sure Science students know what I am talking about.
In 1726, Newton shared the apple story with William Stukeley, who included it in a biography, “Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life”, published in 1752.
According to Stukeley:
After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden, and drank tea under the shade of some apple trees… he told me. He was just in the same situation – sitting under the apple tree (italics ours) – as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind…. occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood.
The esteemed mathematician and physicist died in 1727 and was buried at Westminster Abbey. His famous apple tree continues to grow at Woolsthorpe Manor (surprised?).
So, what next invention will your boundless mind come up with?
Source: history.com
