Tree that dropped an apple on Isaac Newton's head is still standing

Many of the scientific breakthroughs came about almost by chance and are underpinned by wild stories. The theory of gravity, for example, was formulated after an apple fell on Sir Isaac Newton's head in 1666. Well, at least that's what's left for the story, but it's really just a rumor. spread to this day.

It turns out that congressman John Conduitt, married to Newton's niece, wrote a memorial to the scientist in the year of his death in 1726, and includes that detail to make the story cuter. Supposedly Newton himself used the version that an apple had fallen from the tree and made it clear up the ideas of gravitational forces.

Writer William Stukeley, who met Newton, also reported a similar conversation he had with the scientist in his 1752 biographical book. At the time, he says Newton questioned whether the apple always fell toward the center of the earth and never perpendicularly or upwards.

Woolsthorpe Manor

House Sir Isaac Newton Was Born

The tree these days

The house in which Newton was born in 1643 was called Woolsthorpe Manor and is located in the county of Linconlshire, England. In his early twenties, he was studying at Cambridge University when he returned to his hometown to spend time while the institution was closed due to the Black Death.

It is unknown exactly under which apple tree Newton was when he saw the apple fall to the ground - and not over his head, as legend has it -, but since there was only one in Woolsthorpe Manor, it was assumed to be the famous one. From 1750, a preservation effort began to keep it always standing.

Unfortunately, a heavy storm ripped the apple tree off the ground in 1816. Only a few roots remained fixed, and grafts were able to rescue the piece of history that nearly collapsed that year. Since then, she has remained standing and has provided seedlings that thrive in other locations, such as York University's Department of Physics and Trinity College in Dublin. Even the Bariloche Institute in Argentina has a piece of Newton's “semioriginal” tree.

Check out the tree these days:

Newton tree

Apple tree that came into history

Some descendants

1. Apple tree at Trinity College, Dublin

Tree

2. Apple tree in Goobang National Park, Australia

Apple tree

3. Apple tree in a park in London's Teddington neighborhood

Apple tree