Newtonian attraction

Babson College, a small but prestigious management school on the outskirts of Boston in the United States, plans to mark the 5th anniversary of the death of Sir Isaac Newton on March 31 with ceremonies and speeches.

The school's eccentric founder, Roger Babson, was such a Newton devotee that he had the parlour from the physicist's last London residence dismantled and reassembled in the college's library, complete with its original wall panelling, fireplace and mantelpiece. The library contains more than 1,000 volumes of English and foreign-language editions of Newton's works, many of them autographed and annotated in Newton's hand.

Mr Babson also grew an apple tree on the campus from a cutting of Newton's apple tree and, in 1948, created the Gravity Research Foundation to try to prove that gravity waves could be harnessed for energy.