[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

Not every day you get to do this - I'm posting from an outhouse of Newton's birthplace - Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire. Yes - it has an apple orchard, and yes, it has his bedroom where he used a south facing window to split light into its spectrum. Sadly, you can't take pictures in the house, but I've got some nice ones from outside that I'll post when we get home in a few hours!


Doug

[djellison]

Here is a little mosaic of three frames from my camera ( Canon S2 IS for those that like such info )

On the right, Woolsthorpe Manor. Take carefull note of the windows on the first floor. The 'top left' window at the front of the house is the bedroom window in which Newton was born Christmas Day 1642. He left to go to Cambridge University but returned when the plague struck Europe and the University closed. When he returned, he did his work on Optics. The top right window on the front of the house is his bedroom from that time - and the small window on the near-side wall ( the middle of the three on that wall ) is the small south facing window thru which he did his spectral work projected, using a prism, onto the far wall of the bedroom (by what I found is the door) - and that front window is the one from which he is said to have considered gravity 'on the occasion of seing a falling apple'. There's 1001 different tales of this if you go online, most not including the myth that it fell on his head, some saying he was sat in the Orchard, but 'on site' they suggest he saw it from his bedroom.

And which tree was he looking at. Well the actual tree is supposed to have been basically killed in an 1820 storm, but the tree they mark down as being either the remnants or decendant of that tree is the tall, distorted tree near the left end of the mosaic ( I took the mosaic so it would show house and tree ). The base does look very warped and broken, so perhaps there are remains of the original tree playing a part in that tree, who knows. There is a snuff box in his bedroom made from a log cut from the fallen tree in 1820 (and somewhere in the US a cutting is rumoured to have grown into a tree), along with a copy of Pricipia Mathematica and a replica of his small newtonian telescope

All in all, a great little trip out today - something of a pilgrimage for a space nut like me, for as Tom Hanks said...once the engines are off "Isaac Newton's in the driving seat"

A few more pics to follow.

Doug

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[djellison]

A few more images.

First and second, labeled and unlabeled images of the house from a different view;
Me infront of 'the tree' in an attempt to formulate some magnificent leap forward in scientific thinking (I failed)
And finally, the tree again, from the 'reverse angle'
For more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolsthorpe_Manor
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/...olsthorpemanor/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Isaac_Newton

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[Nix]

A nice trip indeed!

Nico

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

Interesting images of an historical place, doug, thank you for posting them. It is alway interesting to see places where history was made.

I France I visited Buffon's forges, with Buffon's house and the remnants of the first blast furnace, an interesting place too, even if not so notorious than Newton's. Such places are a moving dive into the world of our ancestors...

Descendants of the Newton's trees, which are being replanted all over the world? That reminds me of the Bouddha's tree, which can still be seen in Bodhgaya (or its descendant) and which was also transplanted all over the world. It is funny to see the Newton's tree treated as a religious relic! But indeed being the descendant of newton's tree gives it a certain sentimental value.

[djellison]

A final pic showing the 'far side' of the tree - looking at the state of the base of the trunk, it's not hard to believe that it could be partically the orig. tree in places..who knows. This is a 2 x 2 mosaic

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[Bob Shaw]

All in all, a great little trip out today - something of a pilgrimage for a space nut like me, for as Tom Hanks said...once the engines are off "Isaac Newton's in the driving seat"

Doug:

I think he was quoting Jim Lovell!

Bob Shaw

[djellison]

Well - wasn't sure if it was creative licence on behalf of the script writers, so I wasn't going to say that Lovell said it incase it was just added for effect in the movie

Doug

[Bob Shaw]

Well - wasn't sure if it was creative licence on behalf of the script writers, so I wasn't going to say that Lovell said it incase it was just added for effect in the movie

Doug

Doug:

It was one of Jim Lovell's rentaquotes - he regularly used the phrase in interviews, and it was also broadcast from space at the time, though I seem to remember that Mission Control brought the subject up - doubtless it's going to be picked up in the in the Apollo Flight Journal. I suppose it helps if you're old enough to remember, too...

...what's that? Speak up! Bah, young people these days, don't know what they're missing. In my day we had to make our own Moon landings! Luxury, bloody luxury...

(I could go on. And on. And on!)

Bob Shaw

[dvandorn]

The exchange in question happened during Apollo 8. Mike Collins was at the CapCom console, and called up to the vehicle with a question that had been put to him by his young son: Who was driving the spacecraft? Was it his friend, Mr. Borman? Lovell shot back, with a laugh, that no, he thought Isaac Newton was doing the driving right about then.

The exchange happened, as I recall, during trans-Earth coast, on the way home.

-the other Doug

[dvandorn]

OK -- just for the sake of completeness, the exchange began at four days, six hours, seven minutes and fifty-one seconds into the mission -- mid-day on Christmas Day, 1968. It went like this:

CapCom (Collins): Is this Bill (Anders)?

LMP (Anders): None other.

CapCom (Collins): I got a message for you while you were asleep. Valerie (Anders) said to tell you that she and the kids are leaving for church about 11:30 and eagerly awaiting your return. She said presents are magically starting to appear under the Christmas tree again so it looks like a double barrel Christmas. Over.

LMP (Anders): You can't beat a deal like that. How was Christmas at your house today?

CapCom (Collins): Early and busy as usual. I told Michael (Collins' young son) you guys are up there, and he said who's driving?

CMP (Lovell): (Laughing) That's a good question. I think Isaac Newton is doing most of the driving right now.

CapCom (Collins): Say again.

CMP (Lovell): I think Isaac Newton is doing most of the driving right now.

CapCom (Collins): Roger. We copy.

In my original post, the addition of the line "Was it his friend, Mr. Borman?" comes from Collins' account of the episode in his book, Carrying the Fire. My guess is that Collins' son included that in his original query, but that Collins didn't pass on that portion of the question to the crew, as evidenced by the mission transcript.

-the other Doug

[Bob Shaw]

Isn't it satisfying when mere facts back up one's memory?

Now, what was I saying?

Bob Shaw

[tty]

[quote name='Richard Trigaux' date='May 7 2006, 09:05 AM' post='53120']
I France I visited Buffon's forges, with Buffon's house and the remnants of the first blast furnace, an interesting place too, even if not so notorious than Newton's. Such places are a moving dive into the world of our ancestors...
/quote]

That can't be right, blast furnaces go back at least to the 14th century in Sweden.

tty

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

OK -- just for the sake of completeness, the exchange began at four days, six hours, seven minutes and fifty-one seconds into the mission -- mid-day on Christmas Day, 1968. It went like this:

...

CMP (Lovell): (Laughing) That's a good question. I think Isaac Newton is doing most of the driving right now.

...

-the other Doug

If i remember well, we hear something like that in the movie "Apollo 13". Perhaps they re-served the same allusion, or it was well known enough to be included into the movie.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

That can't be right, blast furnaces go back at least to the 14th century in Sweden.

tty

That it was the first blast furnace is what was explained by the guides at Buffon's forges, but I shall not deny that it could be somewhere else.

Perhaps there is a confusion on words. In french we have "bas-fourneau" ("low furnace") for a device which don't melt iron (the resulting iron lump needs to be puddled and it can be forged) and "haut-fourneau" ("high furnace") which melts iron, but gives high carbon pig-iron which can only be cast, not forged. It need to be converted into steel, an operation which is known only since the 19th century. The device at Buffon's is clearly of the second kind. In my dictionary "haut fourneau" translated into "blast furnace" But using an air blast into an iron furnace or into a smithy is known since long ago, this is perhaps what was in Sweden in the 14th century. But if there are really "haut fourneaux" in Sweden since th 14th century, so the explanations at Buffon's are false.