"Newton's apple" meaning in English

See Newton's apple in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: Newton's apples [plural]
Etymology: After the story that English scientist Isaac Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. Head templates: {{en-noun}} Newton's apple (plural Newton's apples)
  1. Something that acts as a source of inspiration or triggers an important realization for someone. Wikipedia link: Isaac Newton, Isaac Newton#Apple incident Categories (topical): Gravity

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for Newton's apple meaning in English (2.7kB)

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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1913, Archibald Allan, Space and Personality, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, page 204",
          "text": "The 'perfect fluid' which Lord Kelvin desiderated, is an instance that scientists are on the outlook for something that will serve as a Newton's apple to lead them to the larger truth which urges birth from their instincts of faith.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Yuri Tsivian, “The Gesture of Revolution or Misquoting as Device”, in Annie van den Oever, editor, Ostrannenie: On \"Strangeness\" and the Moving Image: The History, Reception, and Relevance of a Concept, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, page 25",
          "text": "Shortly afterwards, in a book called Stupeni. Tekst khudozhnika [Steps. An Artist's Text] published in 1918 in Moscow, Kandinsky wrote about himself as the original discoverer of abstract painting and, as is the custom of discoverers, recounted what precisely became his Newton's apple.",
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        "Something that acts as a source of inspiration or triggers an important realization for someone."
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{
  "etymology_text": "After the story that English scientist Isaac Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree.",
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          "text": "The 'perfect fluid' which Lord Kelvin desiderated, is an instance that scientists are on the outlook for something that will serve as a Newton's apple to lead them to the larger truth which urges birth from their instincts of faith.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
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          "text": "Shortly afterwards, in a book called Stupeni. Tekst khudozhnika [Steps. An Artist's Text] published in 1918 in Moscow, Kandinsky wrote about himself as the original discoverer of abstract painting and, as is the custom of discoverers, recounted what precisely became his Newton's apple.",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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