Historical and Commemorative
Medals
Collection of Benjamin Weiss
DEATH OF JOHN CONDUITT TANNER, John Sigismund: England, 1737, Bronze, 58 mm John Conduitt (1688-1737) was a member of parliament
for Southampton and Master of the Mint, having succeeded Sir Isaac Newton,
his uncle by marriage. He is said to have commented on Newton’s
gravitational theory as follows: "In the year 1666 ... while he was
musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity
(which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a
certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further
than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon thought he to
himself & that if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps
retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a-calculating what would be the
effect of that superposition..." ( Keesing, R.G., The History of
Newton's apple tree, Contemporary Physics, 39, 377-91, 1998). LINK to Newton's Theory of Universal Gravitation
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