Newton and the law of gravitation

[devrimci_kürt]

Did Isaac Newton really discover the law of gravitation when an apple fell from a tree and hit him on the head?

[iNow]

Probably not, no. Of course, we can never be 100% certain, but it seems unlikely. I watched a NOVA special on Newton a while back, and I agree with this take:

 

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/newton/buchwald.html

NOVA

: Everybody has an image of Newton, the guy who got hit on the head with an apple and dreamed up the universal law of gravitation. Is there any truth to this?

 

Buchwald

[

Jed Buchwald, an historian of physics and professor of history at the California Institute of Technology

]: I doubt that an apple is what stimulated him to get the idea. The story behind it, of course, is that he was lying in the garden there, and instead of thinking about girls, he was thinking about the moon and how it goes around the Earth and so on. And an apple falls, and the story goes that bang, he suddenly has the idea that the same thing that's making the apple fall is what's holding the moon in its orbit. Then he does a calculation to see whether the mathematical behavior, the acceleration, as it's known, of the moon as it orbits around the Earth would fit with the fall of the apple if you assume that it falls at a certain rate. In other words, he's already got the whole ball game in his hands. I don't believe it.

[Fowz]

My own personal belief of the story is that it was a romanticised fabrication of true events recalled by Sir Isaac to enhance his God-like self image; that the idea of "universal gravitation" came to him in a moment of inspiration. And it worked! I'm sure the majority of people believe Newton "discovered" gravity when struck by an apple, as opposed to the creation of the theory being a 20-year long process.

[Edtharan]

No. IIRC it was "occasioned" by the fall of an apple.

 

This does not mean that it hit him on the head, nor does it mean that it was at the exact same time.

 

What it means is that he could have seen the apple fall, which got him thinking about why, when the apple was not connected to anything it still fell towards the ground.

 

So the idea that there does not have to be a physical connection between the apple and the ground could ahve been spurred by seeing an apple fall, bit it in no way means that the theory came to him fully formed light a lightning bolt at the same time he saw that apple fall.

 

In fact, there is a lot of work that he did before and after that point where he worked long and hard to work out the strength of gravity. But the idea that there doesn't need to be a direct connection could ahve occurred "occasioned" by the fall of an apple.