The Apple
The Apple
The famous apple which hit Newton’s head in 1666 was a “Flower of Kent”, a pear-shaped cooking variety, originally called Maluspumila by the Romans.
The present tree comes from the original apple tree grown in the garden of Woolsthorpe Manor, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, which, it is said, inspired Sir Isaac Newton to formulate his theory of gravity by watching the fall of an apple from the tree.
The Flower of Kent’s apple is pear-shaped, red coloured with light green streakings, mealy, and sub-acid, and of generally poor quality by today's standards; because of this, it’s now largely gone from cultivation. Despite the name, it is likely of French origin; the tree was named like this because the Kent was the first English county where it was planted, because it was the nearest and the most commercially linked territory to France, where the tree comes from. This type of apple is more known for the legend on it than for its taste.
In spring, the tree is covered in pink-flushed, white blossom, and sometimes produces a crop of not particularly tasty, disease-prone eating apples.
The original tree, which was in Newton's garden at Woolsthorpe Manor (his birthplace in Lincolnshire), is now growing in a courtyard garden in the Physics Department in the University of York; although Newton did not specify from which tree he observed the apple fall, it turned out that it was the only apple tree growing in his garden.
The tree had been cared for since the 1750’s by generations of the Woolerton family, who were tenant farmers and lived in the house from 1733 to 1947; it blew down in a storm in 1816 and some branches were removed.
The surprising fact is that this tree now must be over 350 years old.
The history of the Apple
In the 13th century BC, Ramesses II (Egyptian Pharaoh) ordered for apples to be cultivated in the Nile Delta region.
Further, apples were also cultivated across the Rhine Valley region, and around 35 different types of apples were cultivated by the end of the 1st century CE.
When the English colonists came to the US in the 1600s, they found only the crab apple variety.
They also noticed that the orchards produced lower number of fruits because the number of honeybees were less.
So they shipped apple tree cuttings, seeds and beehives all the way from England to the US in early 1622.
Once the shipment arrived, the English colonists immediately started planting apple orchards.
Historians also mention about a man named William Blackstone, who brought a bag of apple seeds along with him from Europe into Massachusetts, USA.
He is known to have planted apple orchards on Beacon Hill in Boston as well as Rhode Island.
In 1632, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop was gifted the Conants Island in Boston Harbor. In response to this generous gift, John promised to plant an apple orchard on the island and also pledged to give a fifth of the fruits produce every year to the governor, whoever he may be.
By the 1640s, apple orchards were well established across the US. The first commercial apple tree nursery, called William Prince Nursery was opened by Robert Prince in 1737 in the US.
In 1789, George Washington (the first US President) along with the vice President, and some others visited the William Prince Nursery. However, George Washington was not impressed by the garden and stated that the shrubs in the nursery were trifled and the flowers were few.
Then there is the legend about 'Johnny Appleseed' that Americans hold on to so dearly. The popular folk hero's actual name was John Chapmen (1774-1845), a farmer whose desire was to cultivate so many apples that nobody would sleep hungry. He travelled from one land to another planting apple orchards and is believed to have travelled approximately 10,000 square miles of the Frontier country to fulfill his dream.
He would dry the apple seeds, put them in bags and give them to passersby (heading West) he met.
He devoted his entire life towards the 'apple cause' until his death in 184In the early 20th century, another man named Sydney Babson had also devoted his life to planting apple orchards.
Today, the apple is the most widely cultivated fruit tree in the world, with China as the leading producer, followed by the US at second place.
Some of the other leading producers are Iran, Italy, France and Turkey.
Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician, and the greatest scientist of his era.
He was born in 1642 in Whoolthorpe, Lincolnshire.
His father dead three months before his birth and his mother Anna Ayscough married, when he was three, Barnabas Smith; because of this he lived with his mother’s grandparents.
When Barnabas Smith died he obtained a big heritage, and,thanks to it, he could attend King’s School where he learned Latin but not Mathematics.
In that period he started to built meridians, water clocks and windmills.
In 1661 Newton attended the Trinity College of Cambridge, thanks to his teacher.
There he discovered the binomial theorem. After the closing of the college because of the plague, he continued to study on his own. During this period he began to calculate the infinitesimal calculus.
From 1670 to 1672 he studied optics; with those studies he solved the problem of the rifracting telescope changing it with the reflecting telescope; in 1672 the Royal Society incouraged him to publish his theories in writing Optics and he came part of the society.
But, the most important year was the 1666, when the apple’s event came. In fact, in that year Isaac Newton started to think about the movement of the moon thanks to the fall of the apple.
He left it when he got wrong the calculation.
The scientist finished the theory in 1684 with the manuscript De Motu Corporum but he published it in the writing Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
Here he explained the three universal laws, he defined the universal law of gravitation and he showed the first analitic determination of the speed of the sound in the air.
From this every scientist began to study the world and the universe.
Newton's Experience
We've all heard the story. A young Isaac Newton is sitting beneath an apple tree contemplating the mysterious universe. Suddenly - boink! -an apple hits him on the head. "Aha!" he shouts, or perhaps, "Eureka!"
The story is almost certainly embellished, both by Newton and by the generations of storytellers who came after him.
The Royal Society in London is making available in digital form the key original manuscript that describes how Newton devised his theory of gravity after witnessing an apple falling from a tree in his mother's garden in Lincolnshire, although there is no evidence to suggest that it hit him on the head.
He was particularly obsessed by the orbit of the Moon around the Earth; after seeing how apples always fall straight to the ground, he spent several years working on the Mathematics showing that the force of gravity decreased as the inverse square of the distance.
There are two important accounts about the apple story:
1. William Stukeley, who said that after dining with Newton:
“The weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank tea, under shade of some apple-trees, only he and myself.
Amidst 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 occasion'd 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.”
2. John Conduitt recorded a similar story:
“In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge ... to his mother in Lincolnshire & while he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth but that this power must extend much farther than was usually thought.
Why not as high as the moon said he to himself and if so that must influence her motion, and perhaps retain her in her orbit.”
Apple Pie Recipe
Ingredients
For the pastry
• 255g/9oz plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 140g/5oz hard margarine or butter
• 6 tsp cold water
For the filling
• 3 large Bramley cooking apples, chopped, stewed and cooled
• sugar, to taste
• caster sugar, to serve
Preparation Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
2. Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl.
3. Rub in the margarine or butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
4. Add the cold water to the flour mixture. Using a knife, mix the water into the flour, using your hand to firm up the mixture. The pastry should be of an even colour and suitable consistency for rolling.
5. Divide the pastry into two halves. Take one half and roll it out so that it is big enough to cover an 20cm/8in enamel or aluminium plate. Trim the edges with a knife using the edge of the plate as your guide.
6. Cover the pastry with the stewed apples and sprinkle with sugar to taste.
7. Roll out the other half of the pastry. Moisten the edge of the bottom layer of pastry and place the second piece on top.
8. Press down on the pastry edges, making sure that they are properly sealed. Trim off any excess pastry with a knife in a downward motion, again using the plate as your guide.
9. Flute the edges with a pinching action using your fingers and thumb.
10. Prick the surface of the pastry lightly before placing the pie in the oven. Cook for 20-30 minutes.
11. When the pie is cooked it should move slightly on the plate when gently shaken.
12. Slide on to a serving plate, dust with caster sugar and serve.
