I’m pretty sure there’s another version of Isaac Newton’s falling-apple story. The one we always hear was no doubt made up to avoid getting in trouble with his mom. The actual story was probably more like mine.
One day my brother and I were studying the laws of physics (aka. launching peaches from our tree into the stratosphere with tennis rackets). We were trying to see what angle and velocity were optimal for landing peaches in our neighbor’s neighbor’s yard. Deep study like this often requires some experimentation (like seeing if swinging hard enough will launch only the peach pit at your brother, leaving extruded square shaped peach slices behind – it won’t!).
I must have miscalculated the younger-brother-pain-to-tears ratio, so to salvage the experiment I did what any older sibling would do to get out of trouble – I gave him the obligatory “free shot”. For those of you who don’t have siblings, or peach trees, the “free shot” is where you let your younger (and weaker) sibling take a free shot at you, knowing that it won’t hurt much, and it will make them laugh hard enough to forget about telling Mom what you just did. (And if Mom did hear the crying, she will hopefully walk in right as your sibling is hitting you.)
So I stood about 10-15 ft away from him and let him throw a peach at me as hard as he wanted. I know what you’re thinking, but no that didn’t happen, I have five children. Instead I got the worst bloody nose I’ve ever had. Did I mention my brother played baseball? It took a full 10 minutes of pinching my nose to get that one to stop. I’m pretty sure that the pain was enough that I could have invented differential calculus, or at least a few new curse words.
But it worked, I don’t remember getting into any trouble (most of the time parents don’t punish children that are bleeding profusely). And after that he and I were even (for the peaches, and the time that I innocently helped him obtain stitches on his forehead).
So based on my experience, I’m pretty sure that Isaac Newton’s true story involves him giving his younger brother a “free shot” to avoid getting in trouble for some experiment involving him and a red fruity projectile, and learning something about equal and opposite reactions as a result. History books don’t tell us where his brother hit him, but we do know that he didn’t have any kids!