did an apple fall on newton

Legend has it that a young Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree

when he was bonked on the head by a falling piece of fruit, a 17th-century “aha moment” that prompted him to suddenly come up with his law of gravity. In reality, things didn’t go down quite like that.

Full Answer

Did an Apple really fall on Newton’s head?

Did an apple really fall on Isaac Newton’s head? Legend has it that a young Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when he was bonked on the head by a falling piece of fruit, a 17th-century “aha moment” that prompted him to suddenly come up with his law of gravity.

Did Isaac Newton's apple really exist?

Newton's apple is one of the most popular and enduring anecdotes in scientific history, told to school children and repeated in educational books. But did it actually happen? It's true that Newton left London, as did many people at the time, in an effort to escape the plague [source: The National Archives ].

Why does an apple always fall to the ground?

Newton wondered why the apple should always fall to the ground, rather than fall sideways or upward when it released from the branch. The answer, Newton said, is that the earth attracts the apple using a yet-unnamed force. Thanks to Newton, this force would later become known as gravity [source: Stukeley ].

How did Newton come up with the law of gravity?

Legend has it that a young Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when he was bonked on the head by a falling piece of fruit, a 17th-century “aha moment” that prompted him to suddenly come up with his law of gravity.

See more

What did Isaac Newton do?

Far more than just discovering the laws of gravity, Sir Isaac Newton was also responsible for working out many of the principles of visible light and the laws of motion, and contributing to calculus. Photograph of Sir Godfrey Kneller painting by Science Source. acceleration. Noun. increase of speed or velocity.

When did Isaac Newton return to Cambridge?

Despite his apparent affinity for private study, Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667 and served as a mathematics professor and in other capacities until 1696. Decoding gravity was only part of Newton's contribution to mathematics and science.

What did Isaac Newton do to develop gravitational theory?

Legend has it that Isaac Newton formulated gravitational theory in 1665 or 1666 after watching an apple fall and asking why the apple fell straight down, rather than sideways or even upward.#N#"He showed that the force that makes the apple fall and that holds us on the ground is the same as the force that keeps the moon and planets in their orbits," said Martin Rees, a former president of Britain's Royal Society, the United Kingdom's national academy of science, which was once headed by Newton himself.#N#"His theory of gravity wouldn't have got us global positioning satellites," said Jeremy Gray, a mathematical historian at the Milton Keynes, U.K.-based Open University. "But it was enough to develop space travel."#N#Isaac Newton, Underachiever?#N#Born two to three months prematurely on January 4, 1643, in a hamlet in Lincolnshire, England, Isaac Newton was a tiny baby who, according to his mother, could have fit inside a quart mug. A practical child, he enjoyed constructing models, including a tiny mill that actually ground flour—powered by a mouse running in a wheel.#N#Admitted to the University of Cambridge on 1661, Newton at first failed to shine as a student.#N#In 1665 the school temporarily closed because of a bubonic plague epidemic and Newton returned home to Lincolnshire for two years. It was then that the apple-falling brainstorm occurred, and he described his years on hiatus as "the prime of my age for invention."#N#Despite his apparent affinity for private study, Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667 and served as a mathematics professor and in other capacities until 1696.#N#Isaac Newton: More than Master of Gravity#N#Decoding gravity was only part of Newton's contribution to mathematics and science. His other major mathematical preoccupation was calculus, and along with German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, Newton developed differentiation and integration —techniques that remain fundamental to mathematicians and scientists.#N#Meanwhile, his interest in optics led him to propose, correctly, that white light is actually the combination of light of all the colors of the rainbow. This, in turn, made plain the cause of chromatic aberration—inaccurate color reproduction—in the telescopes of the day.#N#To solve the problem, Newton designed a telescope that used mirrors rather than just glass lenses, which allowed the new apparatus to focus all the colors on a single point—resulting in a crisper, more accurate image. To this day, reflecting telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, are mainstays of astronomy.#N#Following his apple insight, Newton developed the three laws of motion, which are, in his own words:

What was Newton's contribution to mathematics?

Decoding gravity was only part of Newton's contribution to mathematics and science. His other major mathematical preoccupation was calculus, and along with German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, Newton developed differentiation and integration —techniques that remain fundamental to mathematicians and scientists.

When did Newton publish his discoveries?

Newton published his findings in 1687 in a book called Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia.

Who was the director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences?

Sir David Wallace, director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge, U.K., added, "He was a complex character, who also pursued alchemy"—the search for a method to turn base metals into gold—"and, as Master of the Mint, showed no clemency towards coiners [counterfeiters] sentenced to death."

Was Isaac Newton liked?

Despite his wealth of discoveries, Isaac Newton wasn't well liked, particularly in old age, when he served as the head of Britain's Royal Mint, served in Parliament, and wrote on religion, among other things.

What is the Apple logo?

Just in case there's someone who doesn't already know, the Apple logo is meant to be the apple that hit Isaac on the head; that's a dent, not a bite. Their original logo showed the whole scene.

Is the apple fall true?

Except, it appears that it actually is true. We get the truth of it from no less a source than Newton himself. During an interview with his biographer, he did say that watching an apple fall out of a tree was the thing that first got him wondering about gravity. In fact, he told the story to anyone who would listen. There are records of many of these re-tellings, including one pinning down the exact date of the miraculous apple. It happened in 1666, when Newton had fled the plague in Cambridge and sat thinking in his mother's garden, he wondered if the same force that made an apple fall also applied to the Moon, and everything else in the sky. He decided to investigate if some single force could explain all of their motion.

Is it true that the apple fell on Newton's head?

It's the apple falling on Newton's head, right? That's the hokey children's story we all get told to explain why a genius first investigated the problem of things falling towards the ground. It's a cute, simple story, but it can't be true. It has to be one of those odd fruit-tree related stories that the 1700s seemed, unaccountably, to spawn — like George Washington not lying about chopping down the cherry tree.

Did Newton confess that an apple fell on his head?

No historical records mention that — although Newton was a prickly fellow and probably wouldn't confess if it did happen.

Who wrote about Newton's relationship to the apple tree?

William Stukeley, who recounted walking with Newton in the family garden and drinking tea under the shade of an apple tree, wrote one such account. Stukeley, who also penned one of Newton's earliest biographies, recalled a discussion with Newton about the notion of gravity, one in which Newton pointed to a nearby apple on a branch as an example.

What did Isaac Newton discover about the moon?

As he lounged under an apple tree in the family garden, he was hit in the head with a falling apple and -- eureka --he discovered gravity. Newton's apple is one of the most popular and enduring anecdotes in scientific history, ...

Why did Isaac Newton leave London?

It's true that Newton left London, as did many people at the time, in an effort to escape the plague [source: The National Archives ]. It's also true that he took refuge at his childhood home and spent time in its garden, where there was reportedly at least one apple tree.

What happened in 1666?

In 1666, the Great Plague of London was in full swing, killing scores of residents and causing others to flee to outlying areas. Among them was Isaac Newton, who left Cambridge for Woolsthorpe Manor, the pastoral home of his mother. In his new surroundings, Isaac continued to puzzle over the moon's orbit around Earth.

Did Newton ever find gravity?

His discovery of gravity, however, was more likely the result of many moments of research and reflection rather than just one moment in which an apple bonked him on the head. Although Newton never recorded the exact moment he discovered gravity, a few of his colleagues came close.

Did Isaac Newton tell the apple anecdote?

Newton himself was fond of telling the apple anecdote, especially in his later years. However, historians suspect that by then he had honed the tale in such a way that it succinctly illustrated his discovery of gravity, boiling it down so that it was easy to digest [source: Connor ].

What does Isaac Newton say when he hears an apple hitting him on the head?

A young Isaac Newton is sitting beneath an apple tree contemplating the mysterious universe. Suddenly – boink! -an apple hits him on the head. “Aha!” he shouts, or perhaps, “Eureka!”.

Who told the story of the apple?

Newton told the apple story to Stukeley, who relayed it as such: “After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank thea, under the shade of some apple trees…he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind.

Who wrote the book "The Apple"?

It is the manuscript for what would become a biography of Newton entitled Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life written by William Stukeley, an archaeologist and one of Newton’s first biographers, and published in 1752.

Is the Apple story true?

So it turns out the apple story is true – for the most part. The apple may not have hit Newton in the head, but I’ll still picture it that way. Meanwhile, three and a half centuries and an Albert Einstein later, physicists still don’t really understand gravity. We’re gonna need a bigger apple. More on these topics:

What happened to Isaac Newton when he was hit by an apple tree?

The legend that Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when he was hit on the head by a falling piece of fruit, resulted in a “eureka moment” that prompted him to suddenly come up with his law of gravity. In reality, things didn’t go quite like that. Newton entered Cambridge University in 1661. Four years later the school temporarily closed due to an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Newton was forced to move back to his childhood home. It was during this period, when he was in the orchard, he observed an apple drop from a tree. There’s no evidence that the fruit actually landed on his hea

How many apple trees were there in Newton's garden?

There was only one apple tree growing in the garden of Newton’s family home at Woolsthorpe. So we can be reasonably sure that we can identify the exact tree. The original blew down in the 19th century, but a new one grew from its roots:

What did Newton discover about nature?

Newton made more than discovery, when he realized the presence of one of the way through which nature interacts. He realized the presence of an omnipresent and unconditionally unidirectional attractive force between the apple and ground, between moon and earth and same between sun and earth.

Where did Newton first work out his ideas?

Neither Conduitt nor Stukeley recorded when Newton claimed the fall of the apple happened, but we also know from other sources that he first worked out his ideas at his family home of Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, so we can be reasonably sure it was in the summer of 1666, when Newton had returned to Woolsthorpe to escape the plague that was then ravaging the towns.

Which theory of relativity is well approximated by Newton?

Einstein’s theory of General Relativity , and its Fueld Equations, reduce to Newton’s theory of gravitation in the appropriate limit (weak field limit, technically speaking). That is, if you allow things to be slow and not too massive, General Relativity is very well approximated by Newton.

Who first recorded Newton's life?

The first account was given in 1726 by John Conduitt, a student at Cambridge. It’s worth pointing out that Newton was an old man at this point: 83 years old. Conduitt recorded a brief assertion in his notes:

Do objects fall towards the ground?

In past, it is obvious that numerous people might have seen the objects falling towards the ground, so they also did the discovery of the fact that every object or thing comes down towards the earth.