Galileo’s Principle

When the cure is worse than the disease

Galileo Galilei is famous for sparking the birth of modern astronomy. But his final work opens with a slightly more mundane topic — how to store a stone column on a building site.

A seemingly logical way to do this is to store it flat, propped up by a support at each end. This means it doesn’t have to get dirty by laying on the ground and is easier to pick up later.