It's too bad the apple story is the only one the public imagination latched on to. Newton was so much more than that. Granted a lot of his discoveries were hard to explain without math, but he deserves a lot more credit for human history.
I bet writers of children's stories had a hard time explaining Euler too.
But somehow they managed to insert Einstein into the public imagination. And almost no one I know understands the photoeletric effect or the theory of relativity. I myself have the vaguest of understandings.
The end product is something successful I think. A series of children's books focused on the histories of physics, maths, philosophy, etc. while showing how each generation stands on the previous giants' shoulders would be stellar.
Unfounded conjecture: photos matter a lot. Especially when the photos of Einstein make him look like a kooky grandpa and the images of Newton make him look like a stiff, stern cartoon.
I bet writers of children's stories had a hard time explaining Euler too.
But somehow they managed to insert Einstein into the public imagination. And almost no one I know understands the photoeletric effect or the theory of relativity. I myself have the vaguest of understandings.