ISAAC NEWTON
 |
|---|
THE FAMOUS APPLE INCIDENT
Many people have heard of Isaac Newton's encounter with an apple and his discovery of universal gravity, but what they don't know is whether or not it is true. The story goes like this:
One day in the late summer of 1666, when sitting under an apple tree, in his hometown of Lincolnshire, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the force of gravity. An apple from above, fell onto his head, and whilst pondering the universe, he began to question what had made the apple fall. He soon fell upon the principle of universal gravitation explained the force's qualities, which led onto his three laws of motion.
Some account for this incident actually occuring, including a few aquantainces, François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), William Stewkeley and John Conduitt (who actually wrote of the event in 1726), whilst others believe the entire tale to be a myth or extremely exaggerated truth.
The following is a short story of the apple scene written by Doug Craigen:
One day Isaac was reading a book under an apple tree on the farm. An apple fell out of the tree - bonk! Ow! Now, for most people that would be the end of the story, but not for Isaac. Not for somebody who just couldn't stop asking why all the time.
Why did the apple fall out of the tree? Does everything fall? What makes things fall? Can anything stop things from falling? Are the sun, moon, and stars falling? Why don't they ever hit the ground?
So many questions. Newton spent many years answering these questions by thinking and doing experiments. He made up the law of gravity. According to this law everything pulled everything else to itself by a force called gravity. How strong that force is depends on how heavy the things are and how close together. So even two apples pull toward each other. But, the force is so small that you need a very careful experiment to measure it. The reason that things fall toward the ground is that the earth we live on is so very heavy, and we are so close to it.
