Apples & a Man

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. While it is a useful maxim, it can also be understood as a theory to good health. Apple has given us company for thousands of years. It was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and tempted Adam & Eve once upon a time that brought about the proverbial fall of man. Apple, in a biblical sense also symbolizes knowledge, immortality, temptation, fall of man, and sin.  It has since then stuck in the throat of man and is called Adam’s apple and continues to tempt us today with its taste, look and colour.

Apple has also inspired curious feelings in the minds of men. The most notable being the idea and later the law of universal gravitation in Sir Issac Newton as he observed and then speculated upon an apple falling from a tree in his garden at the Woolsthorpe Manor, his birthplace in Lincolnshire, England. This incident happened in the late English summer of 1666. This apple tree is still kept alive and continues to give a good crop of apples every summer. The physics department of University of York has a grafted cutting from this famous tree in their courtyard.

Gravitation as we are now aware, only says that any two bodies in the universe will attract each other and will attract with a force that depends on their respective masses and the distance between them. Today, we as students of physics, dispose this theory in twenty minutes whereas Newton took twenty long years to develop and perfect it before publishing it. This theory explained a number commonly observed facts like objects falling on to the ground, waves in the sea, elliptical orbits of planets around our sun and many other innumerable baffling observations.

As a child Newton was not sturdy and robust and therefore he avoided rough games of boys however he had an experimental mind and enthusiastic bent. He created Kites with lanterns to scare the credulous villagers at night, waterwheels that ground wheat into flour, work boxes and toys for his little girl friends, drawings, sundials and a wooden clock, to divert the interests of his play mates towards more creative and scientific channels. Newton also read extensively and noted down his experiences that seemed to him out of the way.

Today what is probably more important is how we understand these theories and personalities and the reasons behind them and their behaviour and how they are relevant to our lives and interests. Little wonder then that we find it easier to remember our teachers who have taught us in a way that we continue to carry a picture of their classrooms and images of various subjects and theories that they have taught. 

I seek your help by getting your response to this questionnaire. Thanking you in anticipation. A click on the link below will take you to the questionnaire:


https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG1MOS1VM0ozeWxIQ1gxSDcwQmc2bVE6MQ