Argument#1
Statement No. 1
Newton, the apple, and the idea of attraction
Explanations and summaries are editorial material. Consult the source to verify the original wording.
Faithful reading
Statement No. 1: The only thing required for the idea of a connection between the falling apple and the force of attraction to arise was that the fruit fell down and Newton sprang up, because, according to this account, there could have been no other cause of it. The full details of this matter are given in Chapter II.
Were all philosophers and thinkers throughout the thousands of years before 1665 completely without this idea? Is it not surprising to suppose that Newton himself had never seen anything fall before this apple fell? Or did he already have some other idea, which was broken at that moment by the fall of the apple?
Were all philosophers and thinkers throughout the thousands of years before 1665 completely without this idea? Is it not surprising to suppose that Newton himself had never seen anything fall before this apple fell? Or did he already have some other idea, which was broken at that moment by the fall of the apple?
Easy explanation
Statement No. 1 questions the familiar story about Newton and the falling apple. The Earth pulls objects toward itself; in physics this pull is called . The book speaks about this idea as a .
Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) asks a simple question: if one falling apple was enough to awaken this idea, why had people who saw things fall for thousands of years not reached the same thought? He also asks whether Newton himself had really never seen anything fall before that apple.
The key difference is easy to understand. Seeing an object fall is one thing. Connecting that fall with a particular cause and building a new idea from it is another. Statement No. 1 focuses on this difference and asks why this one event is treated as so important.
Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) then raises another possibility as a question: did Newton already have some other idea that changed when the apple fell? The statement does not give a final answer here, so we should not invent an earlier idea and place it in Newton's mind.
The main point is that Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) does not simply accept the apple story at face value. He asks how an ordinary event—something falling—came to be treated as the starting point of a special new idea. He sends the reader to Chapter II for the fuller discussion.
Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) asks a simple question: if one falling apple was enough to awaken this idea, why had people who saw things fall for thousands of years not reached the same thought? He also asks whether Newton himself had really never seen anything fall before that apple.
The key difference is easy to understand. Seeing an object fall is one thing. Connecting that fall with a particular cause and building a new idea from it is another. Statement No. 1 focuses on this difference and asks why this one event is treated as so important.
Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) then raises another possibility as a question: did Newton already have some other idea that changed when the apple fell? The statement does not give a final answer here, so we should not invent an earlier idea and place it in Newton's mind.
The main point is that Imam Ahmad Raza (rahmatullahi alayh) does not simply accept the apple story at face value. He asks how an ordinary event—something falling—came to be treated as the starting point of a special new idea. He sends the reader to Chapter II for the fuller discussion.
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