Which is quite right of course – the point of the science is that gravity is a universal force and isn’t special to one piece of fruit. Stukeley records Newton sitting under apple trees, rather than any particular chunk of wood. Why shd that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself occasion’d by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood…” But the apple tree story has a beautifully rhythmic and Wordsworthian quality which makes it stand out: “…he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. Stukeley can be a pretty dull writer – his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s life (1752) feel padded with the inconsequential and say nothing of Newton’s scientific achievements and little about his character. You can read William Stukeley’s first-hand account of the great scientist telling the tale in our Turning the Pages resource. The story of Sir Isaac Newton and his falling fruit is one of the most famous (and embellished) anecdotes in science. And that’s how I managed to spot a new drawing of the legendary Newtonian apple tree.
I’ve been scanning some of them too: a really high-resolution image file allows you to see far further into the detail of a picture, often more than looking at its original. Recently I’ve compiled descriptions of scientific portraits, botanical illustrations, studies of insects, nebulae drawings and all manner of other original artwork. Keith started his career in literary libraries: he worked for the Wordsworth Trust at Dove Cottage in Grasmere and the Armitt Library, Ambleside.Īs we prepare for the launch of the Society’s new picture database there’s plenty to do in scanning and cataloguing collection imagery.
His previous curatorial experience has been with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Wellcome Institute which means he is on a slow tour of the very best scientific and technical collections in London. Keith has been the Society’s Librarian since 4 July 2005, a date he celebrates with fireworks. Head of Library & Information Services, the Royal Society
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