Christopher Whiteside MBE is a Conservative activist. He was Conservative candidate for Leeds North East in the 2024 General election
He has served as a County, City & District, Borough, Town and Parish councillor, and has also been a school governor and health authority member. He is currently an Egremont Town Councillor.
He lives and works in the North of England, particularly dividing his time between Cumbria and Yorkshire.
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..."
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"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