An apple tree has grown at Isaac Newton’s mother’s Lincolnshire home for hundreds of years, honoured as the inspiration for his celebrated science.

In 1666 Isaac Newton asked: “Why should that apple always descend perpendicular to the ground? … Why should it not go sideways, or upwards, but constantly to the earth’s centre? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it.” With that the origin story of Newton’s theory of gravity was born.

Seventeenth century philosopher William Stukeley records the after dinner with this friend Isaac Newton, the two of them went outside where, “under the … Read more “Foundation tree of scientific knowledge”