Ann Gollin

My name is Ann Gollin (formerly Ann Stern). My first conversation with Walter took place almost forty years ago when I walked into his office one afternoon and asked if he had any aspirin. I told him I was going through the breakup of my marriage and I had a headache. He didn’t say anything but smiled, leaned down, opened up his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of scotch (Dewars) and two glasses. He didn’t say anything while putting a glass in front of me and a glass for himself. He poured the Scotch into both glasses, still not saying a word. We didn’t talk much then; he didn’t probe the reasons for my headache nor make small talk. It was an easy silence of drinking, respectful and intuitive appreciation of each other, and understanding that Scotch was better than aspirin for what ailed me. I liked this man and his depth of understanding.

While I was at Lamont—working first with Marie Tharp on the World Ocean Floor Map and then with Gordon Jacoby at the Tree Ring Lab—Walter and I would go on the occasional run by the railroad track from Palisades toward Nyack. 

Many years later, after moving into New York City and big changes in both of our lives, we started going out for dinner at Henry’s, a restaurant that was equidistant to both of our apartments and a favorite. Walter was a “rock star” with Henry and the whole staff—for his expertise, his magnanimous appeal, genuine interest and respect for all he talked to.  He’d tell stories and listen to others’ stories. We’d have dinner together at Henry’s very frequently on Saturday nights for many, many treasured years.

Our conversations were wide-ranging, fun, and fascinating. He’d say something I didn’t understand and I asked him to explain it to me, or I’d ask him a question and, having the rare intelligence he had, he could put the answer into simple, clear language. He was never didactic. I usually took notes. He was simply and thoroughly excited about life, and its wonders.  The following are notes, taken in no particular order, from having dinner with Walter:


“We’ve been modern humans for at least well over 100,000 years.” —now so-called civilized, for 90,000.”

“Politics are all about dirty fighting.”

“The Romans were fabulous engineers.  The Pantheon was made of concrete —‘til the 19th century concrete was not known to us.”

“There was very little worthwhile engineering done except the cathedral. The slope of the aqueduct must be less than 3 degrees.”

“There were strain gauges (curves) used go measure movement.” He was talking about Haggia Sophia, and then he drew a picture that I can’t understand now, but did then.

“The Romans never left anything in the hands of God.”

“The biography of Cicero is wonderful.”

“65 million years ago the sea level was 100 meters higher than it is today.”

“Evolution ultimately leads to suicide because the way the species survive is by aggression.”

Limits to Growth by Meadows and Meadow was published in 1972 and presented a model that showed there would be economic and environmental collapse within a century. He drew a picture with years on the bottom and total population on the right side – with an arrow pointing upwards.  We are increasing at 2 % a year.

“There will be no natural resources left.  Within 100 years we’re going to have a disaster – violent fighting over resources.”

 “It’s hopeless but we can’t give up.” 

“We have to find a way to do it.”

“None of us knows the answers.”

“Aristophanes measured the circumference of the earth 50 BC – 50 AD. He did this by putting a stick vertically in the air.”

“Nature does not like coincidences.”

“The 82nd or 101st Airborne were called by Eisenhower into the South to reinforce school integration.”

Galileo’s Letters to his daughters is wonderful.

“Newton’s Laws of Mechanics: Newton’s Laws are extraordinarily beautiful -  engineering and aesthetics.”

“Science extracted the words from biblical rigidity into something more beautiful.”

“Incredible defiance – emerging from the Dark Ages into asking questions.”

“Darwin was a geologist who broke through Mosaic thinking.”

“The world is much older than the Bishop of Usher said.” 

“Scholars were numbers.” They pushed the boundary (when mankind first appeared.)

“Last hold out was Hutton, a 17th century philosopher. New Fellow of Agriculture. Society of France. He was a farmer and a doctor. Hutton said in his last sentence: “No prospect of a beginning and no sign of an end.”

“Most erosion rate takes place a few centimeters per 1,000 years.”

“Think of the invention of zero.  It happened in India.   Probably B. C.”

 “There is an uninterrupted line of 3  ½ billion years in an uninterrupted line.”

“Spring was yesterday, for about a half an hour.”

 “The places where I lived the people were very honest.  They broke the law all the time.”

“By 3,000 B.C. they had banks in Mesopotamia” (Response to our current ignorance of thinking we are the first to live in a civilization.)

“Jan Hooterman was the man who died on the Vema from an explosion.  The captain told us all change into our best clothes.  He was buried at sea.”

“Nez Pierce Indians.  Chief Joseph – when he surrendered, he made a wonderful speech.”

“The Black Feet Indians maybe collaborated with the American military and government.”

When I asked him to explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to me he drew a picture, said a few words, and, at the time, I wrote it down and at the time, understood it (I don’t now).

“Excessive self-protection breeds Mediocrity.”

“35,000 years ago Cro-Magnon man arrived in Europe and in at least a few thousand years the Neanderthals had disappeared from Europe.  Why?

There are three theories:

  1. The Cro-Magnons beat the shit out of the Neanderthals and they were exterminated.
  2. They were absorbed.
  3. They were driven into uninhabitable lands and mountains.”

“Cro-Magnon are descended from Neanderthal by DNA.”

“Nothing is ever conclusive.” 

“A priest said to Galileo when he was invited to view the moons of Jupiter through a telescope: “I refuse to view the obscene spectacle of nature contradicting reason.”

Hutton – an 18th century geologist:

“There is no sign of a beginning and no evidence of an end.”        

“The Hubble telescope is obsolete —but it’s the only game in town right now.”

 “I asked Walter what he was doing with his pen and his wallet on the checkered tablecloth:

“I’m making a triangle —a 3 x 4 x 5 triangle.   I’m measuring the hypotenuse”

Our gene pools contain what we’ve been for 10,000 years.

People want to learn.

People want to be taken on a journey and learn about a separate reality.