The first place to discover on our journey back home through Cambridge was Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire since we took membership of national trust. This is the birthplace of genius of 17th Century mathematician and physcican, Sir Issac Newton.
As we enter into the manor house is the science discovery centre with lots of hands on activities, you can play with colours and how primary colours are mixed and the colours split, how the gravity works for different things,calculus. Upstairs with lots of prisms, glasses which children are able to do and see how prisms cause Diffraction and Refraction of light . Light was projected in a straight line where the prisms was placed to see how the direction of wave got shifted when moved from one transparent medium to other and called refraction.
Children used glasses to see how bending of light happens and like Newton they used feathers to see through the light and could see split colours. Diffraction is the bending of light waves around obstacles or a slit.Got a chance to revise all the physics again.
Mixing of primary colours
Most exciting bit was inside the house as you go in you will see lounge, kitchen and upstairs in his chamber where Issac Newton did many of his experiments in the 18 months, when it was the time of plaque and civil war broke. He has to come back from Cambridge University to Woolsthorpe . He made a hole in the chamber and made it dark and let light pass through , used prisms to split light into many colours of the visible spectrum , As you peep out through the window, you could see the apple tree preserved which made him think '' Why do apples always fall down straight to the ground?'' not sideways or upwards, So there must be a power which draws them. Then he called it as gravity. So wonderful to see these amazing historical place and the way they kept it alive.
The story of Sir Issac Newton sounds so interesting as he was born prematurely and his dad died after three months. His mother remarried and had enmity towards his mum, and she wanted him to look after the farm when she was widowed for the second time, she wanted him to look after the Manor house however Newton was always carried away with his childhood fantasies of various experiments and inventions of colour theory, reflecting telescope, windmill etc...
We enjoyed that day and in the end visited the orchard with apple tree and took some snaps. In fact the tree was blown by the storm in 19th century and the branches were broken.The tree was remain rooted and regrew strongly from the base and it is pruned regularly to keep it healthy and photography at the apple tree is one of the essential part of the journey.
