Rudolf Arnheim in Ballast Quarterly Review Vol 9 No 2 (Winter 1993), p. 2.
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The physicist George Gamow was also an entertaining popularizer. He once told the story of how with his wife and their baby daughter he visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa. As they climbed the steps, they noticed an increasingly musty smell, which they first attributed to the ancient walls of the building. Then, however, they began to suspect their little girl, and by the time they reached the top it was clear that she needed immediate attention. “And from the very place,” explained Gamow, raising his arm and his voice dramatically, “where Galileo launched his experimental objects, we also propelled…”

— Rudolf Arnheim

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The physicist George Gamow was also an entertaining popularizer. He once told the story of how with his wife and their baby daughter he visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa. As they climbed the steps, they noticed an increasingly musty smell, which they first attributed to the ancient walls of the building. Then, however, they began to suspect their little girl, and by the time they reached the top it was clear that she needed immediate attention. “And from the very place,” explained Gamow, raising his arm and his voice dramatically, “where Galileo launched his experimental objects, we also propelled…”" in the context of "Rudolf Arnheim in Ballast Quarterly Review Vol 9 No 2 (Winter 1993), p. 2." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "George Gamow" (Quotes about Gamow) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
George Gamow

About George Gamow

George Gamow pronounced "GAM-off" (March 4 1904 – August 19 1968) was an American physicist and cosmologist of Russian descent. He developed the Big Bang theory of cosmology, using it to predict the existence of Cosmic background radiation, and his insight that DNA nucleotides probably formed "a triplet code of four symbols" was influential on very important research and discoveries in genetics.