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started to increase its activity. Blood would have started flowing to his precuneous, his lateral parietal cortex, his medial prefrontal cortex, and his anterior cingulate cortex as these regions began to consume oxygen and glucose at an increased rate.
    This is the default mode network getting warmed up. The neurons in these regions are increasing their activity. His anterior cingulate would have signaled to his parasympathetic nervous system that all was well and his blood pressure would drop. His heart rate would slow and time between beats would start to become slightly more variable.
    This physiological reaction would start to feed back to his brain and his relaxation might deepen. In this idle state and in the absence of some externally induced task, Newton’s brain starts to get to work. His mind begins to wander; his thoughts turn inward and become reflective.
    The nodes in his default mode network are now ready to communicate. The millions of neurons in these regions begin to partially synchronize their oscillatory electrical activity at different frequencies so that neuronal messages from the default mode network can travel throughout his brain. Since the nodes in the default mode network are hubs they can get information from almost any brain region. Memories and associations, along with mathematical and spatial concepts, which are stored in regions connected to the parietal cortex, can also be accessed by his default mode network. These concepts now begin to bubble up into Newton’s consciousness as the medial prefrontal cortex reports to the rest of the active default network what is happening in the far reaches of his subconscious.
    These reports from Newton’s vast knowledge of physics in his long-term memory, which are normally not part of his conscious awareness, can now enter his mind because his brain does not have to worry about talking, scheduling meetings, planning his day, or managing his time.
    The motions of the planets, the inverse square law, attraction, mass, and acceleration: all of these concepts that Newton has learned might have begun circulating in Newton’s awareness. Prior to sitting in his garden this particular evening, Newton might not have found relationships among these concepts because they would not have the chance to enter his awareness during his everyday life. Likewise, there is also evidence that the default mode network works unconsciously so that in an idle state, the brain finds connections among concepts without awareness.
    Then for reasons we do not yet understand, sometimes these thoughts reach awareness. The important thing is that during rest, the default mode network can open connections between brain regions that are normally too busy trying to keep up with your activity-filled life to talk to each other. This is when true creativity and insight can happen. At this point, Newton’s anterior cingulate cortex, normally hard at work detecting errors and monitoring the outcome of behavior, is now freed to detect weak and strange relationships between numbers, forces, objects, and space.
    In such a relaxed state, Newton might have only barely noticed the apple falling from the tree. However, his brain would have recorded the event. A seemingly trivial event in the world, an apple falling from a tree, might have triggered a cascade of neural activity which allowed the concepts Newton was contemplating to synthesize into a completely new idea. All the clocks struck at the same time because the clocks were not being wound.
    In fact, Newtonian mechanics is still used as the basis for modern engineering. Bridges, buildings, airplanes, and cars still rely on engineers being able to calculate using Newton’s laws. A “Newton” is an indispensible unit of measurement that tells you how much force you need to move a mass of one kilogram at a rate of one meter per second squared.
    Sitting around in contemplative moods is not exactly tolerated in the