There’s an old apple tree in England that refuses to fade into history. The very said tree to have inspired Newton to philosophize about gravity. At Woolsthorpe Manor this tree is still thriving after 350 years.
It was a quiet afternoon in the 1660’s, when Sir Isaac Newton saw an apple fall for his tree and suddenly found himself with an extraordinary question: why do things always fall straight down?
Newton’s year of ideas
In 1665, Newton was only 23 and fresh out of Trinity College, Cambridge. But it was also that year that the Great Plague swept through London. The university was closed down and he was forced to relocate to his mother’s in the town of Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire. The year he was isolated, thinking it was going to be a waste of time, turned to be one of his most productive years.
Historians call it Newton’s annus mirabilis—his “miraculous year,” between 1665 and 1666. In those years while Newton was confined away from the company of professors and packed lecture rooms, he concentrated on the solitary study of the then changes and upcoming revisions of mathematics, optics and physics and worked on them as far as he could. This was the time where the famous apple-related episode happened.
One day, Newton was sitting in an orchard and saw a fruit drop and asked himself why it was that the fruit always descended vertically as opposed to in any other angle. From that point he began to wonder if some sort of force, like gravity, was pulling the apple to the ground. He then began to ‘deeper’ and imagine that gravity, like a free-running potential, could also be the reason, why the Moon is revolving around the Earth.
Beyond the garden
Moreover, the garden was not the last of Newton’s intrigue. For the succeeding 20 years he doubted, hypothesized, and proved some of his theories. Eventually, in 1687, he was able to publish the famed book of his time, “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica” also known as “Principia.”
The Principia contained the universal law of gravitation and the three laws of motion. The motion of the planets and the tides, and the entire solar system brought to a new unexplained stance of how it worked, along with the apple that was imagined to be falling from a tree.
Initially, apple stories became widely popular due to Newton’s notion of its sight being the catharsis to his epiphany. Newton himself admitted the sight of the apple was the trigger, though he never said it hit him on the head—that part was added later as a joke. His niece Catherine Barton shared the tale with Voltaire, and his friend William Stukeley even wrote down Newton’s memory of the moment in 1752. From then on, the image of Newton and his apple became a universal symbol of scientific discovery.
The apple tree today
The astonishing thing is that the tree is still living. People can see and smile at Newton’s apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor, with its deformed twigs still attempting to touch the clouds in an exuberant fashion.
It is remarkable to see that the apple tree, regardless of ages of turmoil and horrors, continues to blossom and bear fruits. This reignites in us the strength in the power of an idea for an apple tree. Cuttings from the tree have traveled far beyond England. Saplings have been planted at universities, research centers, and even space agencies around the world, spreading its story of curiosity and wonder.
Newton’s apple tree isn’t just a piece of history—it’s living proof that great ideas can come from the simplest moments.