Tag Archives: gravity

Gravity and education in Grantham (Lincolnshire)

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THERE WERE APPLES on sale in the Saturday street market in the Lincolnshire town of Grantham. It is extremely unlikely that they came from the tree (or one of its descendants) that dropped an apple on Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), and as is popularly believed, stimulated his ideas about the nature of gravitation.

Kings School Hall in Grantham

Newton was born at Wilsthorpe Manor, which is about 9 miles south of Grantham. Between the ages of 12 and 17, he attended the King’s School in Grantham. There, he was educated in Latin, Ancient Greek, and probably also in mathematics. In 1661, Newton was admitted to Trinity College in Cambridge, and the rest is history.

The King’s School in Grantham still exists, and is fully functional. It is close to the wonderful St Wulfram church, whose spire is the third tallest in England. The school’s hall, in which Newton was taught, is still used by the school. On its outer walls facing the church, there are two plaques commemorating the fact that Newton was taught within it.

Elsewhere in the centre of Grantham there is another commemorative plaque. It is attached to a building that had not existed in Newton’s time. It records that on this plot of land, there was a house owned by Mr Clak, the apothecary. It was in this gentleman’s house that young Isaac Newton lodged while attending the King’s School.

We had never visited Grantham before, and found its historic centre to be delightful. Newton is not the only person of note who was associated with the town. I hope to write about the other noteworthy people in the future.

Why don’t trees fall down?

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SOME YEARS AGO, I was walking in Stoke Common (just north of Slough) with my teacher and close friend, the late Professor Robert Harkness. The Common was a wooded area with a variety of trees. Some of them looked very awkward in that their curved or leaning trunks seemed to defy gravity. Yet, the trees did not fall over despite this.

TREE 3

Robert, who was a renowned physiologist, was also a naturalist. Everything natural aroused his interest. As we walked through the woods, he explained that the trees did not topple over because each of them maintained their own centres of gravity as they grew. These centres of gravity must, he considered change constantly during the long lifetimes of the trees. How, he wondered, did the trees grow in such a way that they never became unbalanced and always remained standing?

He never told me the answer. Maybe, he did not know, but ever since that damp grey afternoon with him on Stoke Common, I always look at trees and wonder whether anyone knows the answer to his question. This afternoon, I was walking along the lovely tree-lined path that leads to Kenwood House from its public car park, when I noticed some trees growing on a steep slope lining it. The trees’ roots seemed to be clinging to the slope, hanging on for dear life. Seeing them reminded me of Robert and his wondering about arboreal ‘assessment’ of centres of balance and a fine old friend, who passed away in June 2006.