It has always been taught that Sir Isaac Newton was born in the same year that Galileo died, 1642. However, certain documents and diaries recently unearthed in Pisa have revealed not only that the two scientists were contemporaries, but that they actually met. This occurred during a summer vacation that Newton spent touring Italy. The find also shows how Newton's universal law of gravitation was derived from Galileo's studies of falling bodies, and explains the legend of the apple. As far as can be reconstructed, it all went something like this.

SCENE

A warm, sunny day in Pisa. The Leaning Tower stands midstage, surrounded by the town plaza. The door at the base faces the audience. As the CURTAIN rises, Galileo, dressed in the traditional manner of the medieval Italian professional class, is sitting in the top gallery of the tower, eating his lunch. Beside him on the balustrade is a flagon of Chianti. On his other side is a wooden lunch box, and next to it, a bag of apples. Nearby on the top story of the tower is a pile of bricks and rubble left by construction workers. The Moon is visible in the sky near the top of the tower. Galileo selects one of the apples, but as he is about to take a bite, he stops and examines it.

GALILEO Oh-oh. Eesa not so good, this one. (He pulls a face and tosses the apple nonchalantly over his shoulder, but in the same movement inadvertently knocks the lunch box off the balustrade so that both objects fall -together out of sight to the rear. A moment later an -indignant shout comes from backstage.)