{"id":34700,"date":"2024-09-05T14:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T18:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/science\/?p=34700"},"modified":"2024-09-05T14:48:52","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T18:48:52","slug":"gravity-of-famous-newton-apple-tree-not-lost-on-york-researchers-as-they-plant-descendants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/science\/2024\/09\/05\/gravity-of-famous-newton-apple-tree-not-lost-on-york-researchers-as-they-plant-descendants\/","title":{"rendered":"Gravity of famous Newton apple tree not lost on York researchers as they plant descendants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Media Release from September 5, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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York\u2019s Newton tree descendant was the first in Ontario to take root and blossom. It\u2019s now joined by two more seedlings.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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A thunk to the head, so the myth goes, planted the seed for Sir Isaac Newton\u2019s law of gravity, and while the law bore fruit \u2013 Gravity Day is now celebrated every Sept. 8<\/a> \u2013 so too has the original apple tree\u2019s lineage at York University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thought to be from the same tree that sprouted the young physicist\u2019s imagination in 1666, a descendant of Newton\u2019s apple tree was planted at York University a quarter century ago. Although it is now leaning \u2013 giving in to the pull of gravity \u2013 it has birthed offspring donated to another research institution and its seeds have travelled into space.<\/p>\n\n\n

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One of the two new Newton apple tree descendants planted at York University\u2019s Keele Campus in what was once a secret location<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Now, two more descendants planted in the courtyard outside the physics building from grafted cuttings stand together to continue a lineage that not only connects them to York\u2019s original tree, but an academic tradition that spans much of the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

York Associate Professor Cody Storry<\/a>, who spearheaded the grafting and planting of the new additions and who was a PhD student at the University around the time the first descendant was planted here, says: \u201cI love the fairy tale aspect of the Newton-gravity story, but in fact, probably what happened was as Newton was looking out his window, he saw the apples falling. It\u2019s unlikely that one knocked him on the head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A self-described \u201capple tree person,\u201d not to mention also a gravity person as a physicist who up until about five years ago studied the subject, Storry remembers celebrating the man and the myth in his Grade 13 physics class. When York needed someone to take on the project, he was excited to take the lead. \u201cI quickly put up my hand to be the guardian and to help propagate these new trees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although, as a young physics student he didn\u2019t pay a lot of attention to the first sapling of a Newton tree at York, he definitely thinks its pretty cool now to have original descendants on the Keele Campus, and to be part of ensuring its legacy continues. There is also another tree in a top-secret location. \u201cI feel like the lineage is safe now,\u201d he says. Ensuring that legacy is what was most important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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