Editing 1584: Moments of Inspiration

{{w|Isaac Newton}}'s original examples describing the {{w|Newton's law of universal gravitation|force of gravity}} show an apple falling from a tree in order to explain why the apple falls toward the Earth, instead of the Earth falling toward the apple. He was indeed inspired by a {{w|Isaac_Newton#Apple_incident|falling apple}} but over time this developed into the legend that he was originally inspired from being actually struck by an apple. The first part of this comic retells that famous legend. The later panels depict similar (but more implausible) legends that could emerge if we were to assume that other scientists' most famous examples and discoveries were based on actually observing some mundane everyday event taking place.

In the first situation we not only see the apple fall on Newton's head, we also see the Moon. This was one of the first astronomical objects on which he used his theory of gravity. He calculated its orbit around the Earth and found that it fit with the theory.

In the second situation Cueball throws a baseball towards {{w|Lise Meitner}}, but when she fails to catch the ball it hits one of her porcelain model-atoms. In this way Meitner discovered a way to split the atom. Cueball may represent {{w|Otto Hahn}}, since they were part of the Hahn-Meitner-Strassmann team that worked on this problem. Hahn was later awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, where Meitner was overlooked. Throwing something at someone and asking them to [http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/think-fast-throwing-something.1984437/ think fast] is a common "joke", where the receiver rarely has a chance to actually catch the object. But in this case it could also be a reference to the fact that she then thought fast then made a major discovery. Or if it is Hahn, then he thought faster and got the award instead of her. The porcelain models might also be a reference to {{w|Meissen porcelain}}, in German called "Meißner Porzellan", where "Meißner" is phonetically very similar to "Meitner". (Meitner has previously been mentioned in the comic [[896: Marie Curie]], which more or less explains why [[Randall]] did not choose the more famous {{w|Marie Curie}} as the female example in this comic. Meitner is not very well known in the public, compared to the three men or Curie, but this may exactly be the point for choosing her. She should have been just as famous considering what splitting the atoms has been {{w|Nuclear power|leading}} {{w|Nuclear weapon|to}}!) Also, there's not much in Marie's story that could be put down to fanciful anecdote. "All" she did was extract a few chemicals and study their properties.

In the third situation it is indicated that half of {{w|Charles Darwin}}'s children had {{w|beaks}}, a property not normally found in human children. This would make it very difficult for them to drink soda from a glass or through a straw, compared to his normal children with mouths. Based on this assumption he developed his ideas about natural selection and {{w|evolution}}. The comic is unclear on whether this makes them more or less fit to survive and reproduce. This is a reference to Darwin's initial findings on the {{w|HMS Beagle}} on how {{w|Galapagos}} {{w|finches}} with differently shaped beaks are better suited for specific types of food, and therefore are better selected for environments where those foods are available. The title text furthers this, see below. Darwin later in life feared that having married his cousin since their {{w|consanguinity}} would increase the risk that {{w|Charles_Darwin#Children|his children}} would be born with birth defects (although he did not fear that they would be born with beaks). The difficulty caused by beaks when drinking liquids could be a reference to the Aesop's fable ''{{w|The Fox and the Stork}}''.

In the fourth situation {{w|Albert Einstein}} remarks to a man that it's annoying that the man's twin brother keeps flashing a light from a train when Einstein is trying to check his clock. He then comes to a sudden revelation. This references several of Einstein's (separate—it makes little sense together in this manner) thought experiments on {{w|special relativity}}, such as the {{w|twin paradox}} (the twin on the train should be younger after decelerating to a stop), the time between separate flashes of light, and the {{w|time dilation}} experienced by the observer in the moving {{w|frame of reference}}.

In the title text there is a description of how beaks rather than mouths are more useful when the foods have shells that need to be cracked open like nuts and seeds. Here it is clear that in the John and Mildred family you starve if you cannot eat the bird food, and thus it would be an advantage to have a beak for survival instead of a normal mouth. "John" and "Mildred" may be Mildred and {{w|John T. Scopes}} of the famous 1925 "{{w|Scopes Trial|monkey trial}}" in which John was fined $100 for teaching evolution in a Tennessee school.

:[Lise takes her hands to her mouth and she watches the broken porcelain atom lying in two pieces on the floor where it has fallen of a desk. On the desk three other intact atoms can be seen. The baseball lies behind her.]

 

:[Four kids are standing in front of Megan and Charles Darwin (with a big beard and hair behind the ears). All the kids are trying to drink a glass of soda with a straw in them. The first kid is a boy with dark flat hair and sips soda through the straw with his mouth. The next kid is a boy with standing black hair, he tries in wain to drink with his beak open on each side of the glass. The third kid is a girl with her hair in a bun. She tries to get her beak into the glass which she has put on the floor. The last kid is a boy version of Cueball who slurps his soda through the straw. There is a caption in a frame that breaks the top border of the main frame:]

 

:[A hairy guy is standing in front of Albert Einstein (with wild hair and a moustache), who is holding one hand to his head and has a clock in his other hand. Behind them is a train, with a locomotive at the front and a wagon behind that stretches beyond the frame. Another hairy guy has his head out of the front window of the wagon and is flashing a light towards the other two. In the next three windows can be seen passengers, two with Cueball like heads and one with hair. There is a caption in a frame that breaks the top border of the main frame:]