Florence (/ˈflɒrəns/ FLORR-ənss; Italian: Firenze [fiˈrɛntse]) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 360,930 inhabitants in 2023, and 984,991 in its metropolitan area.
As the ripples created by the simultaneous entry of the three pebbles radiate outward towards the rim of the bowl, Bentov further asks the reader to visualize that the surface of the water is suddenly flash frozen so that the ripple pattern is preserved instantly.