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Newton's Apple Tree Comes to York University -- a First in Canada
At a ceremony Monday, November 1 at 4 p.m. in the quadrangle adjacent to the Petrie Science Building, Prof. Robert Prince, Dean of York University's Faculty of Pure and Applied Science, will host the planting of three semi-dwarf rootstock trees which have been grafted with cuttings from Newton's apple tree.
"This will be no ordinary tree, but rather three trees, all genetically traceable to the family home of Isaac Newton and the site of the legendary falling apple," said Prince. "Although still small, it is my hope that once grown to full splendour, the trees will provide a point of interest for science at York and a landmark for students and visitors alike who may begin the tradition of "I will meet you at Newton's Apple."
Earlier efforts by the National Research Council of Canada to plant a Newton's Apple tree -- an old variety, likely originating from France and producing pear-shaped fruit smaller than those today-- were thwarted because of Ottawa's extreme winters. Prince said he expects the York trees to survive and grow well because they are planted in a more protected area and under less severe climatic conditions. While these fledgling trees will be the first to flourish in Canada (other than in research settings), some successful plantings exist in the US -- at the State Wide Arboretum in Nebraska, for example -- and in England at several locations including Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of York.
Prince's efforts to plant this special "Flower of Kent" tree began almost a decade ago during an exchange visit in 1990 to the University of York, UK. There, he met a Newton scholar, Richard Keesing, who, in addition to writing extensively on Isaac Newton and the history of the tree, had been instrumental in providing genetic material to the Nebraska site.
The cuttings (or scions) made it to York in a rather circuitous way from Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton's birthplace and the site of the famous story of the falling apple. After his death on March 20, 1727, the new owners, the Turnors, transferred cuttings of the apple tree to Belton Park, Lincolnshire, a few miles away. From Belton Park, scions were transferred to National Fruit Research Station in England's East Malling, Kent, by Lord Brownlow. Next, the Agriculture Canada Quarantine Station in British Columbia later obtained some from East Malling and put them under a four-year quarantine. Still later, scions were shipped to York and grafted to a nurse tree on campus, and finally provided in the spring of 1998 to Siloam Orchards in Uxbridge, Ontario, who specialize in heritage varieties.
Prince said the trees are only one year old, but will eventually attain a height of approximately 10-12 metres. Cross-pollination for fruit production will be provided by two old orchard trees located slightly to the north of the Science Building, on land originally part of the historical Stong farm on which York University is located. He noted that the project would not have been possible without the guidance of Dr. Michael Boyer, Professor Emeritus, Department of Biology, a significant contributor to the project and a tireless supporter of the enhancement of the York landscape.
The ceremony is part of York University's 40th anniversary celebrations, which run through to March 25, 2,000.
For further information, please contact:
Sine MacKinnon
Dean Robert H. Prince
Isaac Newton was born prematurely on Christmas day, 1642, three months after the death of his father at Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire, England, the original site of Newton's apple tree.
Though Newton Sr. could neither read nor write, his son Isaac entered Trinity College, Cambridge at the age of 19, and earned his first degree in 1665. His education was interrupted by the Great Plague which broke out in London in 1664 and closed the university in his graduating year. (Newton later returned to Cambridge as Chair of Mathematics, but his earlier academic record wasn't particularly distinguished.)
In 1665, Newton returned to his family home and during the next two years made some of his most famous discoveries in mathematics, optics and mechanics. He carried out many of his optical experiments in his study at Woolsthorpe, but he also ventured out into the Woolsthorpe orchard where the famous falling apple event is reputed to have occurred. Supporting evidence shows that the fall of the apple was an inspiration to his genius, though the plunk on the head has almost certainly an embellishment.
William Stukeley dined with Newton many years later in 1726, but writes (Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, William Stukeley, Taylor and Francis, London, 1936, pp.19-20): "In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge ...to his mother in Lincolnshire and whilst 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."
Perhaps this is the true sign of genius -- a thought process linking two apparently unrelated events, even more remarkable given the common mythological view of the Moon in the seventeenth century. That is, Newton realized that the same force that caused a common event such as an apple falling from a tree was exactly the same force that provided the necessary attraction to maintain the Moon in orbit about the Earth. Newton would later complete the derivation of his "Universal Law of Gravitation" which expresses the application of this force throughout the entire universe.
But Newton did more than simply make this conceptual connection on that hot dry summer of 1666; he also made mathematical estimates as a test of his new theory in the spirit of modern science. They are not difficult to make once one assumes the famous inverse square law (proposed in 1645 by Bouillard) and the fact that the Moon is roughly 60 Earth radii distant. With these facts, and a simple timing of the fall of an object such as an apple from a known height, the Moon's period of roughly 27 days can be deduced. But "being away from his books" in Cambridge, Newton was obliged to make these calculations from memory, using values of the radius of the Earth and distance to the Moon taken from memory.
His estimate was very good. Despite this successful test, however, he did not publish these results immediately, partly because of his famous reticence to publish, and also because no solid agreement existed around the "centre of gravity." That concept clearly had to come after that of "gravity" itself. That is, the Earth may be considered as if its mass were concentrated at its centre, a concept that has little effect for distances as large as that between Sun and Earth, but significant for the Earth-Moon system.
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