Sir Isaac Newton and his apple.
Having an apple bonk him on the noggin was a stroke of luck for Isaac Newton. He immediately came up with his theory of gravity, to whit, in his own words: “The gravity of the situation would have been much worse, had I been sitting under a bowling ball tree!” This was the mark of true genius, since bowling balls would not be invented for several hundred more years. This same happenstance also gave rise to many sayings such as, “you are the apple of my eye”, “it only takes one bad apple to spoil... Sign in to see full entry.