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  3. Cambridge University closed down in the summer of 1665 when the plague broke

Cambridge University closed down in the summer of 1665 when the plague broke

游客2024-05-13  16
问题     Cambridge University closed down in the summer of 1665 when the plague broke out. Newton, a student there, went home to Lincolnshire. He stayed home for two years while the disease ran its course in the area around London. The 23-year-old Newton spent that time studying and laying the foundations for his greatest work, the Principia. One day he sat thinking in his garden, when an apple fell. Then he realized that the direction the apple fell, along with every other object on this round earth, was always toward Earth’s center. It wasn’t just that the apple fell, but that it tried to go to Earth’s center. That was Newton’s eureka moment. He realized that Earth had drawn the apple to it. He realized that every object in the universe draws every other object—probably in proportion to its mass. Newton didn’t publish his Principia until 20 years later. But he formulated the Law of Universal Gravitation (LUG) there in his Lincolnshire garden. He showed us that was true of planets and moons as well.
    Now enters a surprising character. The person who popularized the apple story was none other than the well-known French writer and philosopher Voltaire. Due to his outspoken views, in 1726 he was forcibly exiled to England where he spent the next three years. Newton died in 1727 so Voltaire would have been familiar with the many discoveries made by him. Voltaire was also acquainted with Newton’s niece, Catherine Barton. Newton was a bachelor and she had agreed to manage his London home; therefore she would have been familiar with the apple story, which she related to Voltaire.
    Voltaire sided with Newton in Newton’s bitter fights with Leibnitz. In Candide, Voltaire ridiculed Leibnitz. The character Dr. Pangloss, who went about insisting that we live in the "best of all possible worlds", was Voltaire’s version of Leibnitz.
    We might chalk Voltaire’s apple story up to "partisan license". But if you’ve ever done anything creative, you’ll recognize the plausibility of the apple story. You’ll remember your own moment when some small and commonplace event revealed a great truth to you. That’s the way creativity works.
选项 A、Newton was motivated to write the Principia after he saw the apple fell.
B、The Law of Universal Gravitation was originally included in the Principia.
C、Newton began to form the idea of the Principia when he was a college student.
D、The Law of Universal Gravitation was formulated long before the Principia.
答案 C
解析 从首段第2句至第4句可以知道，牛顿趁着瘟疫肆虐、学校放假的时候，在家里学习。第2句中的a student there表明他当时还是剑桥大学的学生，第4句中的laying the foundations表明那段时间他待在家里的学习为Principia奠定了基础，因此选项C是正确的说法。从首段第4句和第5句就可以知道，牛顿先想到要写Principia，被苹果砸中是之后发生的事，因此选项A中两件事的先后顺序与原文不一致；同样，万有引力定律是苹果给予牛顿的灵感，这也应该发生在他对Principia有想法之后，因此选项D也不正确；原文首段倒数第2句同时提到了Principia和万有引力定律，但并不能表明它们之间是有选项B所表示的关系。
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