The apple is not simply a fruit. It is a symbol of love, temptation, hostility, with all kinds of stories and legends about it, while according to many theories it is the apple that lies at the foundation of human imagination and knowledge.
In one of Newton's notes we see the recount of how an apple fell on his head and sparked his idea of earthly gravity.
Myths about the apple begin with the Old Testament's Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were forbidden from picking just one fruit - the apple. But temptation and female curiosity ignored this restriction, thereby turning the fruit into a symbol of human sin and shame.
But before this story was written in the Bible however, there existed another, even more ancient legend. According to it, the goddesses Athena, Hera and Aphrodite all competed for a single golden apple.
The beginning of the myth describes how only the goddess of discord, Eris, was the only one not invited to the wedding of the sea nymph Thetis and King Peleus. To get revenge, she took a golden apple, wrote the words "for the fairest" on it and threw it among the wedding guests.
The goddesses Athena, Hera and Aphrodite then got into a dispute over the apple and went to Zeus for him to resolve their argument of who among them was the most beautiful. However, Zeus sent them to the Trojan prince Paris.
Following, each one of the goddesses began tempting him so that he would choose her as the fairest. Athena promised him fame, Hera - riches, and Aphrodite - the love of the beautiful Helen. Paris chose the gift of Aphrodite, later leading to the biggest war in antiquity - the Trojan war.
Everyone calls New York the "Big Apple" but the origin of this nickname tells its own unique story. The phrase was not invented by the locals. It was sports journalist John Fitz Gerald who 1st used the term in 1924, titling his article "Around the Big Apple".
He had heard this metaphor from horse jockeys, who described the prizes they competed for as "big apples". Later, the term which would eventually be used as a nickname for New York, was popularized by jazz musicians.
But the history of the apple does not end there because anyone who owns an iPhone today can see the apple logo on the back of their phone. The idea for this began with the apple diet of Steve Jobs.
While following this food diet, he suddenly realized that the word "apple" was the perfect name for his company. The logo with the bitten off apple was created so the fruit wouldn't be mistaken for a cherry.
Another myth goes that the apple logo was linked to the fate of famous British scientist, Alan Turing, a master code breaker who played a vital role in the Second World War.
He killed himself by eating an apple immersed in cyanide after he was convicted of being a homosexual.
