Isaac Newton: The Boy Who Asked Why

Hello there. My name is Isaac Newton, and I want to tell you my story. It all began on a chilly Christmas Day in 1642. When I was born, I was so tiny that my mother said I could fit inside a small mug. I grew up on a farm in a little village in England called Woolsthorpe. The farm was my playground for ideas. While other children might have been running and shouting, I was usually quiet, busy with my own projects. I loved to build things with my hands. I made little windmills that could really spin in the breeze and grind tiny bits of flour. I built a water clock that dripped water to tell the time and even a sundial that used shadows to show the hour. One of my favorite things to make was a kite. But it wasn't just any kite. I would attach a small paper lantern with a candle inside to its tail. At night, I would fly it, and my neighbors would whisper that they saw a spooky comet flying in the sky. I wasn't trying to be spooky, I was just curious to see if it would work. I was always asking questions and wondering how everything in the world worked.

When I grew up, I left the farm and went to a very big and important school called the University of Cambridge. I loved learning all about numbers and science. But one day, the school had to close for a while, so I went back home to my family’s farm. It was there that one of my most famous ideas began. I was sitting in the garden when I saw an apple fall from a tree. Plop. It landed on the ground right in front of me. I started to wonder, “Why did the apple fall straight down to the ground? Why didn’t it fall sideways, or even fly up into the sky?” Thinking about that apple helped me discover something amazing. I realized there was an invisible pulling force that pulls everything towards the center of the Earth. I called this force gravity. It’s the same force that keeps the moon from floating away from the Earth. Around that same time, I did another fun experiment. I sat in a dark room and let a little bit of sunlight shine through a hole in the shutter. When I held up a special piece of glass called a prism, the white light turned into a beautiful rainbow on the wall. I discovered that white light is actually made of all the colors you see in a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

I was so excited about my discoveries. I had ideas about gravity, how things move, and the colors of light, and I wanted to share them with everyone. So, I wrote everything down in a very important book. It was a big job, but my good friend, a man named Edmond Halley, believed in my work and helped me get the book printed for others to read. It was one of the most important science books ever written. After many years of studying the world, I passed away in 1727, but my ideas lived on. My journey shows that if you stay curious and are not afraid to ask “why,” you can discover wonderful things. The world is full of puzzles waiting to be solved, and maybe you will be the one to solve the next big one.

Reading Comprehension Questions

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Answer: He started thinking about gravity after he saw an apple fall straight down from a tree and wondered why it didn't fall sideways or up.

Answer: He discovered that white sunlight is actually made of all the colors of the rainbow.

Answer: Another word for the invisible pulling force is gravity.

Answer: He liked to build little windmills, water clocks, sundials, and kites with lanterns on them.