Page 42 - The Secret Museum

Luckily, it re-rooted itself, and a new tree, an offshoot from the original, is still

flourishing there today.

The owner of Woolsthorpe Manor saved some pieces of Newton’s original apple
tree after it blew over. Some of them are in the Royal Society archives. On a shelf
down in the cool basement are two fragments, as well as two rulers and a prism
made from the wood. One of the fragments is in a little pink plastic bag, because it
has just been on an adventure, up into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in
2010. It will remain in the pink bag, because the bag is now part of its history.

The apple wood was taken up into orbit so that it could experience zero gravity.
The plan was also to drop a real apple on the space station and film whether it was

subject to gravity or not. They weren’t able to do the test because an astronaut who
didn’t know what they were up to – she will remain nameless – saw the apple lying
around and ate it. They could hardly pop out to the shops, so they had to make do
with a pear. You can watch a film of it floating.

Keith told me the pear is flying, not because it wasn’t subject to gravity, but
because the space station is falling, and the pear with it, in orbit. ‘Just look at the
astronauts’ hair,’ he said. It floats above their heads.

Also in the archives is a lock of Newton’s hair – perhaps with high concentrations
of mercury in it, as a result of his alchemical experiments – and his death mask. ‘This
is the closest you’ll get to Isaac Newton,’ said Keith.

We looked at a drawing of Newton’s apple tree, sketched by Thomas Howison in

the 1820s. It is of the original tree, which lies dead on the ground, and the re-rooted
tree beside it. Keith had just been having a good look at it and discovered a new
secret. We peered at it (have a look yourself) and could just make out the outline of
Newton sitting underneath the tree. Keith had seen the picture countless times but had
only just noticed the faintly drawn figure beneath it. ‘The archives are still turning up
secrets,’ he said.

On a shelf beside the pieces of apple tree sits Newton’s reflecting telescope (he
donated it to the Royal Society; they lost it for a while but it turned up again in the

1730s in an instrument maker’s workshop). It has two mirrors inside, and two tubes,
which you slide to focus the mirrors.
Before Newton had the brainwave of using mirrors, looking at the stars meant

holding two enormous and unwieldy lenses far apart, tied together by pieces of
string. Newton mounted his old, big telescope on a maypole, which he’d bought on
Charing Cross Road.

He invented this small, wood and leather reflecting telescope while he lived in
Cambridge. Later, he came to London and worked from a laboratory at the Tower of
London, where he was Master of the Royal Mint. Imagine him peering up into space
from his rooms inside the Tower.

When he made his telescope he sent his idea to the Royal Society and included a