!Wednesday, September 27, 2006
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Once upon a time, which was very, very, very long ago, before your great great great great grandmother even had her feet bound, there was a man.
This is plain weird, I can't draw on microsoft paint.
And this man decided to sit under an apple tree, you know, knowing how its all poetic and everything, having a picnic one summer morning, or reading a book, or watching little fishies in the river or whatever.
Let's just pretend he was reading a book, cause that's the only thing I can draw.
And while he was reading his book, let's say it was pride and prejudice, cause I like the cheem name, an apple fell from the tree, and by a matter of pure coincidence (either that, or his head was very big) hit him.
Hard.
But instead of cursing the poor apple,
He thought, 'why do apples fall from trees?'
I suppose it's a question the people then asked themselves over and over again, only to realise that such things are philosophical i.e. they have no known answer. A modern-day version of this question would be 'what is art?' or 'When is Madonna ever going to start acting her age?'
So anyway, back to the story,
Now unlike all the people who had ever though of this question before but just put it off saying 'these questions are philosophical, so therefore we should just all appreciate them as the phenomena they are', Newton sat down and thought.
And thought.
And thought and thought and thought and thought and thought, and I suppose in the meantime, did a lot of experiments.
And he came up with GRAVITY.
And this man is Newton.
So in conclusion, physics is like being hit hard on the head and not knowing what hit you.
And the only reason why Newton understood it was because he knew it was the apple.