To you who, like Sir Isaac Newton, are always asking “Why?” and “How?” these questions will give something to think about. Suppose there was no such force as gravitation, would an apple fall to the ground? Suppose that gravitation did not draw objects toward the earth, what would happen? “It is gravitation that keeps all things in their proper places.” “It is gravitation that makes things have weight. “It is gravitation that causes the apple to fall. We can only give a name to the force that causes this. “While we know that every object draws every other object, we cannot know why it does so. “This is why things fall, as we say, toward the earth. “The earth is millions of times heavier than any object near to or upon its surface so it draws every such object toward it. “The earth is many millions of times heavier than an apple so it draws the apple toward it millions and millions of times harder than the apple can draw the other way. “The harder an object draws other objects, the heavier it is said to be. Being the physicist that he was, he started studying why this occurred. In reality, Newton was outside and he saw an apple fall off the tree. The story of an apple falling on top of Newton’s head and giving him the concept of gravity is actually not true. “The nearer an object is to another the harder it draws. An apple did not really fall on Newton’s head. “The more matter an object contains the harder it draws.
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“Every object draws every other object toward it. Millions and millions of people had seen apples fall, but it was left for Sir Isaac Newton to ask why they fall. Today, we embellished the story, saying that an apple fell on Newton's head. When he had once begun to think about this he did not stop until he had reasoned it all out. He decided to investigate if some single force could explain all of their motion. For then we may ask why is anything heavy? Why is one thing heavier than another?” “All heavy things fall to the ground-but why do they? Because they are heavy. “Why did it fall toward the ground? Why should it not fall some other way just as well?” he asked.
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“It fell because its stem would no longer hold it to its branch,” was his first thought.īut Sir Isaac was not satisfied with this answer. “What made that apple fall?” he asked himself. Suddenly an apple that had grown ripe on its branch fell to the ground by his side. One day in autumn Sir Isaac was lying on the grass under an apple tree and thinking, thinking, thinking.
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It is only the very ignorant who think themselves very wise. I have amused myself by now and then finding a smooth pebble or a pretty shell, but the great ocean of truth still lies before me unknown and unexplored.” When he was a very old man he one day said: “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore. The more he learned, the better he saw how much there was still to be learned. He was always thinking, thinking.Īlthough he was one of the wisest men that ever lived, yet he felt that he knew but very little. He learned by looking closely at things and by hard study. No other man of his time knew so much about the laws of nature no other man understood the reasons of things so well as he.