In 1666 young Newton was sitting in his mother's garden in Liccolnshire. Suddenly an apple fell from the tree. Newton wondered why such bodies always fall down instead of sideways or up. That's when the idea of gravity came to his mind, as Newton told it several times in his life, but he himself never recorded the story with the apple.
On April 15, 1726, William Stokely spoke to Newton in the Kensington district of London. Newton told Stokely how years ago an apple that fell in his mother's garden spurred him to develop the law of universal gravitation:
"After dinner the weather was warm, we went to the garden and drank tea, under the shade of some apple trees... He told me that he was in exactly the same situation, as before, the concept of gravity appeared in his mind. This was caused by the fall of an apple, while he was sitting in a contemplative mood. Why would this apple always fall perpendicular to the ground, he thought to himself. Why doesn't it move to the sides or up, but all the time towards the center of the earth? The reason is that the ground attracts him. There must be a force involved in the matter."
Dear Newton, let's leave the soil above the apple. We are in the twenty-first century. We will take off with the apple into space, sorry, we will take off with a piece of the apple tree (lest the apple rot in space. Rot??). What would happen to an apple if it fell inside a space shuttle in space and not in a garden in Lincolnshire? Will it fall down? Maybe even he will move to the sides or up. It turns out that an astronaut is going to take with him a sample of the original tree from which Newton's apple fell and defeat gravity.
BBC News announces that the specimen from the original tree, from which Newton's apple fell in his mother's gardens, is held in the archives of the Royal Society in London. It will be taken out of the archive very carefully and will be taken into space by the British astronaut Dr. Piers Sellers. Sellers will take her into space with him to orbit in the space shuttle Atlantis. The space shuttle Atlantis will lift off on May 14 and will carry six crew members. She will fly on a 12-day mission and is the last of the Atlantis missions.
The idea of taking a sample of Newton's original tree is part of the 350th anniversary celebrations of the Royal Society. The wooden specimen will be accompanied on its journey into space by a picture of Isaac Newton himself who will fly with it on a space journey, this one was also donated by the Royal Society.
Dr. Sellers, who was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1996, said, It is a great honor for me and the rest of the NASA team to carry the specimen from the historic tree into orbit. The astronaut joked, "I'm pretty sure Sir Isaac would have been pleased to see that, assuming he didn't have space sickness, or it would have proved his first law of motion correct."
After the space flight, the wood specimen and the image will be returned to their original location, the archives of the Royal Society.
In any case, Newton's laws were proven to be correct and so were Einstein's. In addition, with the help of vacuum bags in the space shuttle, it was possible to take a juicy and delicious apple from Newton's tree (assuming it still grows apples).
10 תגובות
VIT – I liked it 🙂
Listen, honey:
I don't have a time machine and I won't be able to reproduce the events for you accurately.
What is known on the subject is what is written in the link I provided, in which answers are given to some of the questions you raised:
It is written there that Newton himself told people that the thought came to his mind after watching an apple fall (that's right - not on his head. An apple that falls on your head is exactly one that you don't watch).
He didn't write it because he was dealing with science and not biographies, but several people who knew him closely wrote that they heard it from his mouth. It is reliable enough. After all, you don't know anyone who lived in those days, certainly not Newton himself, and you yourself certainly and certainly did not live then, therefore all your information about this period is based on reasonable assumptions about the reliability of things. In this case it seems very reliable.
Was Newton lying when he said that?
I tend to believe not.
Why would he?
After all, he really thought about gravity and must have done so because he somehow noticed its action, so why wouldn't it be an apple? Is an apple more interesting than an egg falling from a nest or a stone thrown upwards? I don't see any romanticization in the preference of an apple over something else and something he must have seen.
Regarding the question of whether an apple tree can live for such a long time, there is no definitive answer.
There are indeed parties who claim that the tree itself is in their hands, but this can stem from various motives and not necessarily from the truth.
Fruit trees don't usually live that many years but who knows - maybe with the VIT service it received this tree was able to survive longer.
So I have summarized for you what I understand from the scriptures in relation to your questions and now I want to ask you a question of my own:
Couldn't you do it yourself?
Michael I didn't understand what you meant, in short and to the point, what is the answer to my question?
Tom:
Too bad you didn't read the comment that preceded yours.
To the doppelgänger in message 4, the point is that Newton originally used an apple falling from a tree as a metaphor to explain his theory, and even about this we only know from a second source and not from letters left by Newton himself.
It's a bit sad in my opinion that the story of the pufferfish was so strongly linked to this theory... I find that it makes the whole thinking process\research\but that Etherzol Carlesa that Newton passed (tens of years) too...trivial..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isac_Newton#Apple
Something here is not clear to me, how is it possible that this apple tree still exists? What is the lifespan of an average apple tree? And for commenter 2, the part with the apple that fell right on Newton's head, this really seems to me to be fiction and not a story that happened in reality, regarding an apple that he saw fall from the tree (but not on his own head) it makes a little more sense to me...
On the other hand, it could be that only after he thought about the theory of gravity and developed it did he think of adding the apple story to it to give the theory a slightly more picturesque tone.
If the British astronaut had to take the apple into space, he would have answered that an apple fell on Newton's head and not the tree.
As far as I know, the story with the apple is a fiction that appeared at all after Newton's death...so....what's the idea anyway?
Pretty stupid if you ask me…
We are already in the days after the symbolism...
Apparently someone older made the decision