Summer Vacation Assignment Newton s Tales 5

Apple falls to the ground A fortuitous event can often trigger a flash of thought in a scientist's mind. It was a warm evening in the late summer of 1666 in Ulsthorpe, Lincoln, England, when a young man with a book under his arm walked into the garden of his mother's house, sat under a tree, and began to bury his head in reading. As he flipped the pages, something shook in the branches above him.

One of the most famous apples in history fell and hit 23-year-old Newton on the head. It so happened that day that Newton was pondering the question: What is the force that keeps the Moon in orbit around the Earth, and the planets in its orbit around the Sun?

Why did the apple that hit him in the head fall to the ground? It was by thinking about this question that he found the answer to these questions – the theory of universal gravitation. Because Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" uses the expression of Euclidean geometry, which is a rigorous and perfect system, the book does not tell the story of the apple falling to the ground, which leads many people to have reservations about the apple falling to the ground.

In fact, Newton's relatives and friends have repeatedly confirmed the story of the apple falling to the ground. The French writer and scientist Voltaire once recalled that when he went to England in 1726, a year before Newton's death, he heard Newton's stepsister say that one day, Newton was lying under an apple tree, and suddenly saw an apple fall to the ground, which caused him to think. Newton had an idea, and an idea suddenly formed in his mind:

Could the apple landing and the planet's orbit be governed by the same cosmic law? The law of gravitation was realized. A close friend of Newton's in his later years, Stockley, also explicitly mentioned that one day in April 1742, after having lunch with Newton, they went to Newton's backyard and drank tea under the apple tree.

In the conversation, "he [referring to Newton] told me that it was in the same situation in the past that the idea of paying attention to gravity came to his mind, and that it happened by chance under an apple tree, when he was in contemplative meditation. ”

In his book on the memory of Newton, another close friend of Newton, Pemberton, also talked about the story of verifying the inverse square relationship of gravitational force due to the landing of an apple. In his later years, Newton recounted the story of the apple at that time, that is, it was 60 years since the apple landed, why an old man remembers this matter so deeply, I think there are two reasons: first, because the law of gravitation is a brilliant achievement that has attracted worldwide attention, and the person concerned is of course deeply excited and nostalgic for the event that triggered the inspiration; Secondly, the dispute with Hooke also left a deep memory, and Newton clarified the truth from one side, and it should be considered that the fact that Apple landed on the ground is valid.

The story of Newton The great physicist Newton grew up in his maternal grandmother's house. His grandmother loved him very much. After Newton went to school at the age of eight, his grandmother sometimes gave him some pocket money

Due to the difficulties of life, his mother put Newton off school to work in the family farm to support the family. But Newton was so immersed in his books that he often forgot to work. Whenever his mother asked him to go to the market with the servants to familiarize himself with the trade, he begged the servants to go out into the street alone while he hid behind the bushes to read.

Once, when Newton's uncle became suspicious, he followed Newton to the town and found his nephew Newton lying on the grass with his legs outstretched, concentrating on a mathematical problem. Newton's studious spirit moved his uncle, who persuaded his mother to let Newton return to school and encouraged Newton to go to college. Newton went back to school, hungry for the nourishment of his books.