10
How the World Began
10.1 Cornetti for Breakfast
Giuseppe was a simple market gardener, as was his father before
him, and his grandfather before him, and so on. Giuseppe was
not sure how long his family had been growing fruit and vegetables for the local market at Castellina in Chianti, Italy, but it
had been for a very long time. Without doubt, this gave him
some rights, or so he believed. He smiled to himself at the frustrated long line of vehicles behind his tiny three-wheeled Ape
as, laden with vegetables, he made his way into town each
Saturday along the narrow Tuscan roads.
Horticulture had always been Giuseppe’s life. Even at school,
he had interpreted every lesson to see how it might be used
to improve the vegetable gardens that one day would be his
to run. This interest in advancing the family business had all
started, strangely enough, when his class teacher explained
some basic concepts of geometry, such as circles and spheres.
“It is a remarkable thing”, she used to tell the class, “that the
circumference of a circle is proportional to its radius, while its
surface is proportional to the square of the radius. That means
that if you double the radius, the circumference only doubles,
but the surface becomes four times as big.” She paused to let the
children take in the implications of her remarks, then reached
into a drawer and held up an apple that she had brought in for
© The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Barrett and P. P. Delsanto, Don’t Be Afraid of Physics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63409-4_10
187
How the World Began
10.1 Cornetti for Breakfast
Giuseppe was a simple market gardener, as was his father before
him, and his grandfather before him, and so on. Giuseppe was
not sure how long his family had been growing fruit and vegetables for the local market at Castellina in Chianti, Italy, but it
had been for a very long time. Without doubt, this gave him
some rights, or so he believed. He smiled to himself at the frustrated long line of vehicles behind his tiny three-wheeled Ape
as, laden with vegetables, he made his way into town each
Saturday along the narrow Tuscan roads.
Horticulture had always been Giuseppe’s life. Even at school,
he had interpreted every lesson to see how it might be used
to improve the vegetable gardens that one day would be his
to run. This interest in advancing the family business had all
started, strangely enough, when his class teacher explained
some basic concepts of geometry, such as circles and spheres.
“It is a remarkable thing”, she used to tell the class, “that the
circumference of a circle is proportional to its radius, while its
surface is proportional to the square of the radius. That means
that if you double the radius, the circumference only doubles,
but the surface becomes four times as big.” She paused to let the
children take in the implications of her remarks, then reached
into a drawer and held up an apple that she had brought in for
© The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Barrett and P. P. Delsanto, Don’t Be Afraid of Physics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63409-4_10
187