The true story of Newton, the apple and gravity

arielpr (52)in #science • 7 years ago

When we speak of gravity, we come to mind the image of Isaac Newton sitting under a tree thinking about life or about the Universe, probably. When suddenly an apple falls from that tree and hits his head, then he quickly links what has happened to his previous studies and an idea arises that will later analyze much more thoroughly with new research and bring with it a revolution in thought, An elegant theory capable of better explaining the behavior of the world and the Universe: gravity.

However, we are not sure that it has happened in such a way. Who says it was that way? In fact, Newton did not leave some writing that verified - or at least not so beautiful and surprising. However, the Royal Society of London works on the digitization of the original writing to make it available to the public and then we will realize for ourselves that there was not an apple falling on his head. This one says that in effect, in 1666, an apple was detached from a tree of the house of its mother, to be more precise. When she saw it fall, it was when she began to become interested in gravity, or rather to perfect her studies.

Going a little further back in time, Newton moved from Cambridge to Grantham, to his mother's house, since he had obsessed the orbit of the Moon around the Earth and in his home could not study it to perfection. Right there, after seeing the apple fall, associated it with mathematics and began the studies that would culminate in the approach of the Law of Universal Gravitation. However, Newton never asserted that his studies followed with apples, this idea was born of a particular story later written by an archaeologist friend of Newton, called William Stukeley who also wrote the biography of the scientist.

Stukeley befriended Newton for the admiration he had, followed him like a true fan until he managed to get a dinner with him. From there one could derive the myth of the apple, since the man tells that after dinner, they went for a walk and had tea under an enormous apple tree. While there, they spoke of Newton's thoughts when, looking at an apple above them, the scientist brought up gravity and then asked the young man, "Why does that apple always descend perpendicular to the earth?" He answered himself, saying that there was surely a power of attraction between matter and the center of the Earth, therefore, "this apple falls perpendicularly or towards the center. If matter attracts matter, it must be proportional, therefore, the apple draws the Earth, just as the Earth draws the apple, it is reciprocal. "

That story is the closest to the apple and its relation to Newton and his laws; However, there were other times in Newton's life when the fruit of discord was the protagonist. It is said that an occasion had to entertain the husband of his niece so he told a story in which he described that an apple had fallen on his head and then his studies made sense, he said this when he saw an apple on the table And so his assumptions about gravity came out again in casual conversation.

50 years later, Newton recalled his love for anecdotes and wondered if it had really happened or whether it was the product of his invention and the need to entertain his friends. Well, perhaps it happened, but no doubt the whole story or as we know it, was an invention of the scientist, according to Keith Moore, archival chief of the Royal Society. In addition, the story was also related to the biblical account of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, why? Newton had very extreme views on religion, so the relationship between his studies and his "fixation" with apples has more than one derivation.

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Thus, the story of the apple that explains that an object similar to the Earth that attracts to the center of this, is possibly one of the fictitious stories more counted in the world like a real fact. Although not so far removed from what actually happened, Newton put his own touch of interest that to tell the truth, is much more entertaining and interesting than the simple fact of seeing an apple fall in the distance.

If a quality had Isaac Newton was the patience with which he developed in terms of his studies, in part said quality was inherited by Johannes Kepler, the man who discovered the order of the Universe.