Quote of the day 18th August 2015


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Jim said…
though with his own it took an apple bonking him on the head, before he made a bold guess as to why it had done it.
8:16 am
Chris Whiteside said…
Indeed, if that legend is true. According to the Royal Society they have an old manuscript which suggests that there actually is some truth in what many had regarded as an apocryphal story in that Newton's mind really was stimulated by the fall of an apple. However he may merely have seen it fall rather than actually been hit on a head with it: the author of the manuscript reported what Newton had said thus:


"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. It was occasion'd 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..."

Source: https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/01/newtons-apple-the-real-story.html
8:55 am
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