Everything about Sir Isaac Newton totally explained
Sir Isaac Newton,
FRS (;
4 January 1643 31 March 1727 20 March 1726]}})
Newton's apple
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
A contemporary writer,
William Stukeley, recorded in his
Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his
Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (
Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now]
National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to
Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
Writings by Newton
Fame
French mathematician
Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we can't find more than once a system of the world to establish." English poet
Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous
epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to
Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than — or in addition to — a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries — such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
Footnotes and references
Resources
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