Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Isaac Newton in 1689 (portrait by Godfrey Kneller)
When the space shuttle Atlantis makes its final voyage on May 14, it will carry into space a symbol of a scientific hallmark from the 17th century. The symbol will be a tiny piece of Isaac Newton’s apple tree…the one that inspired the famed mathematician and physicist to postulate the theory of gravity.
In charge of carrying the tree sample will be British-born NASA astronaut Piers Sellers, who will release the fragment in zero gravity inside the shuttle. The event will serve to honor not only Newton’s discovery, but also the 350th anniversary of The Royal Society, of which Newton served as president.
Sellers told the media in the United Kingdom about the tree sample: “While it’s up there, it will be experiencing no gravity, so if it had an apple on it, the apple wouldn’t fall … Sir Isaac would have loved to see this, assuming he wasn’t spacesick, as it would have proved his first law of motion to be correct.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Isaac Newton's Apple Tree to Experience Zero Gravity – in Space (by Richard Luscombe, Guardian)
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