Leonardo da Vinci

Throughout history, many great men and women made extraordinary contributions to our knowledge and understanding of the world around us as well as ourselves, explaining how things came to be or inventing a new gadget, making life so much more simple for us. Because of Galileo Galilee’s modification to the telescope, we can study the universe more clearly. Thanks to Marie Carrie we know now some basic principles of radiation and we can make sturdier bridges and buildings with accurate right angles because of the discovery of the Pythagorean theorem by Pythagoras. Yet, above all Leonardo da Vinci is considered one of the most important and influential figures throughout history.

Born out of wedlock on April 15, 1452 to Peiro da Vinci and Caterina in Vinci, Florence, Leonardo di ser Peiro da Vinci is considered the archetype of a Renaissance man; he is a man with “unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination”. Da Vinci was a polymath, although he is usually regarded as a painter, he also excels in many other subjects such as math, architecture, music and engineering; some say that that he is the most diversely talented person who ever lived. He worked as an apprentice for much of his earlier life and his most renowned pieces are probably the Mona Lisa and the Vitruvian Man.

In 1976, Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful heart transplant, based on da Vinci’s studies on the heart valve. In December 1903, the Wright brothers first launched their aircraft, but Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of birds and wings provided a base for the aircraft. Da Vinci had a dream where someday men would be able to fly just like birds do and he spent years studying birds. Although that dream couldn’t be realized in the time of da Vinci, without him, the first aircraft might have been invented much later. He also had many designs for an adding machine, tanks and submarines.

Da Vinci was a curious person, who often asked many questions.
He once wrote:
“I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed on the tops of mountains along with the imprints of coral and plants and seaweed usually found in the sea. Why the thunder lasts a longer time than that which causes it, and why immediately on its creation the lightning becomes visible to the eye while thunder requires time to travel. How the various circles of water form around the spot which has been struck by a stone, and why a bird sustains itself in the air. These questions and other strange phenomena engage my thought throughout my life.”

Because of his curiosity on why the sky was blue, he concluded that it was the molecules in the air scatter blue light. He even concluded that the moon reflected the light of the sun.

He also made many connections with seemingly unrelated topics, such as his connection with horse riding and gears, which later became the first bicycle. In one of his notebooks, da Vinci wrote, “connecting the unconnected” which is a way for him to think creatively. Once when da Vinci was standing by a well he noticed that a stone dropped into the well at the same time a church bell rang. Observing how the ripples spread out and connecting that sound also spread out, he made the conclusion that sound travels in waves.

Da Vinci also took many risks, such as experimenting with new paint techniques. When he was painting the Last Supper, he avoided layering plaster on the wall before painting with water colors, and instead, made his own fresco, but his experimentation with paint on the masterpiece failed miserably. Pigments fell off of the painting, inviting decay began to disintegrate the fresco and the paint faded considerably. Leonardo da Vinci’s also studied rivers, and by doing this, he believed that the earth was older than what the Bible said, therefore contradicting the Bible and could have been accused of heresy at any given moment and killed. He believed that ancient oceans left marine fossils on the mountains and not Noah’s Ark.

Da Vinci died on May 2, 1519 but he is still remembered today. Although some of his studies weren’t accurate, they all became bases for many of our new discoveries and innovations. Some say that Leonardo da Vinci was a man born out of his time and with so many contributions he made to our world, he could be just that.