Isaac Newton is perhaps one of the most famous and iconic scientists.  The multi-talented English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, and theologian is attributed with making discoveries and contributing to areas such as the laws of motion, calculus, universal gravitation, and optics.

It is said that Newton formulated the theory of gravitation while sitting in a garden under a tree.  It is often claimed that an apple fell from the tree and hit Newton’s head, thus giving him the idea that gravity kept the moon in orbit around the earth.

Newton did not arrive at his theory in a single moment, but there is some truth behind the myth of the falling apple (although not that it hit him in the head). 

William Stukeley reported in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s life (1752) that on April 15, 1726, he dined with Newton in Kensington and that, “the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank tea, under shade of some apple trees, only he and myself. Amid other discourses, he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind.

“It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth’s centre? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in the matter: and the sum of the drawing power in the matter of the earth must be in the earth’s centre, not in any side of the earth.”