Spacetime
Isaac Newton had it wrong.
The apple fell not because it was pulled,
But because it was pushed.
He wrestled with that apple
Until it defeated him
And he turned to the more practical science
Of Alchemy.
It was Einstein, on the train to Bern,
Whose mind blew open
When he knew that space equals time
And that both are flexible,
Draped over us like a blanket.
Stephen Hawking, expanding Einstein,
Tells time not with a clock or calendar,
But as the swirl of infinite space
Surrounding us.
The curvature of space and time
Around Isaac Newton under his tree
Made the apple fall.
Gravity was the result—not the cause.
the apple is not pulled — it is guided by
the shape of spacetime.
By Deborah Schantz
From The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow.
2009
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