![]() ![]() You were so lost in thought there that you forgot you were under a tree. Your chain of thought is interrupted by a clout to the head by a falling apple. The magazine you are holding reckons the plague could last a while, perhaps a few more months. Or you could stay put and “wait out the storm”. ![]() Your mother could have you and your sister pack and go to your uncle living in the countryside, further away from the wave of the plague. You wonder what would happen when this pandemic finally comes knocking on your door. Seen nothing of interest, you fold the magazine and absentmindedly, as it has occurred to you a thousand times before, you begin to daydream. The magazine details how the ongoing plague could be one of the worst pandemics to ever hit England with some 7000 people dying every day in London. On this boring autumn afternoon, you are sitting in the backyard of your home, reading a magazine from 3 days ago. It is the year 1665 in Woolsthorpe, England.Īpple and Blackberry are fruits, Windows mean windows, nobody knows what Brexit means, and you … well, you are Isaac Newton! With not much to do, the young Newton embarks on an incredible mental journey that would forever change our understanding of the physical world. Newton retreats to his family home in Woolsthorpe, England to wait out the plague. BackgroundĪ young Isaac Newton is forced to briefly postpone his studies at Cambridge University due to the Bubonic Plague. It is intended for clarification purposes and should not be taken as it is. This is a highly dramatized version of a story based on a controversial plot. This article revisits such a story and attempts to offer a dramatized chain of thought that may have inspired Sir Isaac Newton to develop the Law of Universal gravitation. Whether an apple did really hit him on the head or not is debatable.īut I like to picture it that way – makes for a good dramatic story. There were apple trees on his family’s property, and Newton is sure to have witnessed an apple or two falling during that brief stay in Woolsthorpe. Read: Did an apple really fall on Isaac Newton’s head.īut Newton did reside in Woolsthorpe between 16 when Cambridge closed due to the Bubonic plague. To be fair, no really knows whether this story is true. Historians have expressed their skepticism on whether this event actually happened. This is how William Stukeley who visited Newton a year before his death recounts a conversation with him, “ After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank tea, under the shade of some apple trees … he told me he was just in the same situation, as when formerly the notion of gravity came into his mind … 1”. As the legend goes, Isaac Newton was inspired to develop his ideas on gravity by taking notice of an apple falling from a tree. ![]()
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