Short Take

The story about Isaac Newton getting hit on the head by an apple is probably exaggerated 🍎

What most historians believe is that Newton really did observe an apple falling from a tree sometime in the 1660s while at his family home in Woolsthorpe Manor. The falling apple helped inspire him to think about gravity — specifically, why objects always fall straight down toward Earth.

However, there’s no solid evidence the apple actually struck him on the head. That detail seems to have been added later because it makes the story more dramatic and memorable.

The account comes largely from Newton himself later in life. His friend William Stukeley wrote that Newton described sitting in a garden and watching an apple fall, which led him to wonder:

Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground?

That line of thinking eventually contributed to Newton developing the law of universal gravitation — the idea that every object with mass attracts every other object. 🌍

So the short answer is:

• Apple falling from a tree? Probably true.
• Apple smashing Newton on the head? Most likely a myth.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model