2009-11-19
Explanation
This comic retells the famous (and likely apocryphal) story of Isaac Newton discovering gravity when an apple fell on his head, but with a darkly comedic twist. The first few panels show Newton sitting under a tree when an apple falls and hits him. He picks up the apple, examines it, and has his eureka moment: "That's it!" But then the scene shifts dramatically -- a worm on the tree branch curses ("Mother f**ker!") as it watches Newton walk away, and in the background we see that the worm has been pelting Newton with multiple apples, each covered in complex mathematical equations and formulas.
The final panel reveals the punchline: a large apple with "Force of Gravity: F = GM₁M₂/r²" written on it -- Newton's law of universal gravitation. The joke is that the worm had actually been trying to communicate the theory of gravity to Newton by writing the formula on apples and throwing them at him, but Newton only noticed that the apple fell -- missing the literal written answer that was right in front of him. It inverts the legend by suggesting Newton's insight was far less impressive than it seemed, since the answer was being handed to him directly by a frustrated, mathematically gifted worm.
The votey panel shows the cartoonist in bed, captioned "Artistic satisfaction is weird," saying: "Those are the best knee-breeches I've ever drawn..." This is a self-referential joke about how the cartoonist's pride in the strip comes not from the clever writing but from successfully drawing Newton's period-appropriate clothing -- a humorously misplaced sense of artistic achievement.