The core of truth behind Sir Isaac Newton's apple

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The Royal Society in London is making available in digital form the key original manuscript that describes how Newton devised his theory of gravity after witnessing an apple falling from a tree in his mother's garden in Lincolnshire, although there is no evidence to suggest that it hit him on the head. Historians point to the one particular account written by one of Newton's younger contemporaries, an antiquarian and proto-archaeologist called William Stukeley, who also wrote the first biography of Britain's greatest scientist, entitled Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life. "Newton cleverly honed this anecdote over time," said Keith Moore, head of archives at the Royal Society. At Woolsthorpe Manor, now owned by the National Trust, the house steward, Margaret Winn, said that the same apple tree, a cooking variety known as Flower of Kent, still grows to the front of the house, in sight of Newton's bedroom window.