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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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Friday, January 8, 2010
The Inventions of Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most celebrated artists, inventors, and engineers in history. Focusing exclusively on his many machines and inventions, his actual effect on European society and the world becomes very difficult to clearly define. Though he conceptualized and designed many fantastic inventions, Leonardo’s technological effect on Europe and the world has, contrary to popular belief, been very limited.
To begin: what did Leonardo accomplish with his inventions? Or rather, what was it that he invented, regardless of the effect? No analysis of Leonardo’s effect, or lack of effect, on European society as related to his inventions could be complete without first knowing what filled his notebooks. Before exploring his effect, we must explore Leonardo’s inventions, sketches, and machines.
Perhaps the best illustration of Leonardo’s breadth of mechanical study is a quote from The World of Leonardo da Vinci: “It can confidently be said that whatever the need and the occasion, at some time or other in his career, Leonardo da Vinci gave it some thought and produced for it some solution.”[1] Leonardo invented vehicles for land, air, and sea; weapons and war machines previously unheard of; mechanical marvels of production; and various technical breakthroughs of technology and mechanics. Leonardo‘s ideas were not limited by those who came before him. Rather, Leonardo took established ideas and studied them independently in order to improve or change the way people saw the world around them.[2] Though even Leonardo was sometimes unable to construct one of his devices, he did not allow the tools of the time to limit him: if a tool or component was required that had not been invented, Leonardo simply built himself one. Or he devised new methods of crafting.[3] Leonardo’s workshop must have been amazing to behold: unfortunately, very few people ever saw his workplace.
Leonardo was an engineer, therefore he devised machines to more efficiently dig canals and dredge rivers. Many of his crane designs utilized multiple loading arms and hoists; the idea being that while one was unloading its burden, the other could be swinging back around for a new load. He built movable cranes: on wheels or on tracks, so that they could pull themselves along using winches, rather than having to be disassembled and rebuilt repeatedly. These machines, as opposed to many of his other devices, were actually put into use. However, they did not change the face of construction. They were simply a different ‘model’ of crane: a different style that Leonardo used as opposed to others. They were Leonardo’s cranes, and were used on his projects. They did not spread throughout Europe or the world: only on the sites Leonardo worked on.
Leonardo also invented the paddleboat: the first mechanically driven boat in history. Powered by a hand-crank or foot-treadle, it would not have been very fast or energy-efficient. The somewhat simple design is remarkably similar to the steamships of later centuries. This, one would think, would have been a revolutionary invention. However, the boat, for obvious reasons, was never built on a large scale or put into use. The mechanical power required to drive it at any speed competitive to sails or rowing simply did not exist at the time. In addition, he invented the double-hulled ship: one inside the other. The idea was that if one were punctured (in war or peace), the inner hull would keep the boat afloat. This revolutionary idea, sadly, was beyond the construction capabilities of the day for a full sized ship.[4] In addition, he devised a ‘submarine’ covered in leather and equipped with a breathing apparatus: it was never built.
On a less practical note, Leonardo was fascinated by flying machines. Many of his ideas were based on sound aerodynamic theory,[5] but required light-weight materials and amounts of mechanical power unavailable at the time. Others were doomed to failure, for Leonardo was intrigued by the flight of birds, and often sought to build contraptions with wings that flapped, and thereby provide lift. In later years, he would refine his designs to gliders, and though there is no proof of his ever testing them, one was rebuilt by English engineers, tested, and surpassed the Wright brothers’ first attempts with gliders in 1900.[6] Some of his later designs even include retractable landing gear, and the first designs for a helicopter.
Leonardo worked for many different governments, and was often asked to devise war machines. In response, he invented more powerful guns and cannon, using new production techniques; shrapnel loaded firebombs; a new recipe for gunpowder; retractable rams for the prows of ships; tanks and armored vehicles, and machine-guns. Many of these ideas were wildly impractical (and were never utilized), but would have been fearsome on the field nonetheless. His tank especially was a marvel of design: it was far too heavy for practical use at the time, but bristling with guns. In analyzing the design, modern engineers discovered that one gear was positioned backwards, and thus prevented the machine from functioning. This mistake, they reason, was a deliberate decision by Leonardo, who regarded war as "beastly madness"[7] in order to stop others from using his design. His machine-guns were truly marvels of technology: one design included three tiers of twelve barrels. In combination, one tier would fire, one would cool, and one would reload.[8] During time spent in Venice, he invented a very modern-looking diving suit, complete with separate valves for intake and outflow. He also invented snorkels very similar to those used on submarines in the twentieth century.[9] Again, though, none of these radically modern inventions were ever put to use. Some were realized in models and prototypes, but never used in the field, and never released for others to see. With the death of Leonardo, these designs lay dormant until someone else reinvented them. Independent of Leonardo.
Leonardo also spent a lot of time devising mechanical contraptions to improve production of goods and materials. In a time when mass-production did not yet exist, he invented a needle-grinder with which he estimated he could produce around 140,000 needles per day.[10] He built the very first mechanical rollers for the production of thin and flat sheets of metal, and a file-making machine unequaled until the mid to late 1700’s. The important distinction, however, is that though his designs are the first, we trace our modern counterparts back to different, later, inventors. Among his numerous textile machines was one with which to cut and shear fabric. Though his design was lost for many years, a very similar design was put into practice in Nottingham one hundred-fifty years later, and chaos ensued. Using the machine, one man could do the work of four, and textile workers set fire to the factory and smashed the machines. Leonardo also drew chain gears: strikingly similar to those used on bicycles, but not invented until 1832.[11]
Leonardo’s machines and mechanical marvels were amazing, to be sure, but what truly sets him apart from his contemporaries is how far ahead of his time he was. He diagramed a gunpowder-driven engine utilizing pistons, revealing the first glimpse of the internal combustion engine, and pioneered steam power through his steam gun. This point is debatable, as Leonardo credited Archimedes with the design, but historians agree that there is no indication of why he did so. What is definite is that all contemporary advances in steam technology following Leonardo are very similar to his own work: though they probably did not have access to his notebooks, inventors of later years mirrored Leonardo’s steam-power theories and discoveries. In the words of one expert: Leonardo “directly and positively influenced the subsequent trend of events leading to the evolution of the steam engine as we know it today.”[12] The steam engine is the only modern technology that some experts say can be positively traced back to Leonardo. There are gaps in the chain of events leading to him, but here there is possibility, while with many of his inventions there is none.
Leonardo also invented the very first alarm clock for the time-conscious man.[13] It used hydropower and gravity to ‘kick’ the sleeper with a wooden paddle at a determined time. He also diagramed the very first manned gliders in history, and in the first example of adding mechanics to aircraft, designed a wound-spring mechanism for the flapping of an aircraft’s wings. Though none of his aircraft ever flew, as a side project, he invented the parachute. His hefty design was said to be impossible by modern experts, but was safely tested in 2000 over Africa; some five hundred years after Leonardo sketched it, and is said to work smoother than modern equivalents.[14] Such was Leonardo’s genius and futuristic thinking that one expert was moved to “recall the classical story of Daedalus…[who] might well have been regarded as a sort of mythological Leonardo da Vinci.”[15] Leonardo was truly a man ahead of his time, for many of his ideas would only be successfully accomplished centuries after his death.
So now that we have explored Leonardo’s inventions, what was the effect they had on Europe and the world? Very little to none at all. His notebooks were not published during his lifetime, though he always intended to make them public. With his death, he left his works to Francesco Melzi, a close friend, who safeguarded the secrets for another fifty years. The debate remains of whom, if any, was allowed access to the texts. Many inventors in the fifty years after Leonardo’s death ‘invented’ many of the same things as Leonardo, and had far-reaching effects, but who was the true inventor? The truth remains that Leonardo sketched and diagramed many influential machines and technological advances, but did not release them to the public. Others did the same, but made their findings mainstream. Leonardo carried out his projects in solitude, and most of his work was never completed. His apprentices and helpers often did not know what they were making: his relationship with them was often impersonal: they were his machinists, and built what he told them to build.
The result is that nearly all of his inventions were reinvented some fifty to three hundred years later, by other people, in different countries, and completely independently. Therefore Leonardo’s immediate effect is at best questionable, and at worst negligible, for there is no proof of direct influence. In some areas, such as steam power, the correlation to Leonardo’s work is very easy to follow, and therefore presents a greater likelihood of effect, but there is no proof, as any documents related to Leonardo were supposedly locked away at the time. Leonardo, for all his sketching, diagramming, and modeling, did not have the effect on technology that is commonly believed. In the modern world, people are astounded, and rightly so, by the inventions of Leonardo. However, what is often overlooked, and what is the crux of the issue, is that even though we can see aspects of modern technology in Leonardo’s work, and look at a modern machine and see aspects of Leonardo’s machines within it, they are not within the same technological family tree.
Imagine this ‘family tree’ of inventions. Leonardo’s branch splits and sprouts new limbs with each invention. But then it stops. The limbs cease to branch and grow in 1519: the year Leonardo died. Then, on quite different branches, belonging to other inventors, limbs stretch outwards from the past to the present, twisting and joining as the years pass. These inventions have continued to evolve and change as ages change and different people have added their modifications to the ideas. Leonardo’s remained in the fourteen and fifteen hundreds. Using this image, it becomes much more apparent that though Leonardo had the idea, the fact that he did not make his inventions known means that we cannot credit him with impacting technology, for others did that for him, without knowing about him.
Therefore, the influence Leonardo has had is as a man who was such an amazing thinker and inventor as to serve as inspiration to inventors across the world and the centuries. Here is a man who single-handedly invented machines ranging from combinations of pulleys to internal combustion engines. A man who designed tanks and alarm clocks: submarines and helicopters. Not all of his inventions worked, and not all had any practical use, but “there is no one to compare with him in the beauty of his designs, and in his grasp of the essential of a subject, however little he was able to persevere and bring it to triumphant fruition.”[16] Imagine what Leonardo could have done if he had had the materials we have now? Or what would have happened to the world if he had published his works? Leonardo’s greatest legacies are his notebooks, for even though his inventions were not put to work in his lifetime, or even under his name, the fact that everyone else lagged hundreds of years behind him is a testament to the ability of individuals to advance technology by leaps and bounds.
Leonardo created mechanical marvels of all kinds: his scope of expertise is unequaled in all of history, and such was his skill that his ideas are still relevant today. However, he had no real effect on European or global technology, for he did not release his works. “Of what other man in history can we say that as a physiologist, anatomist, biologist, architect, engineer or physicist, he was not only in the forefront of his contemporaries but was of a quality that belonged to the future.”[17] If only he had also been a publisher. Leonardo truly was ahead of his time, and even though we cannot credit him with many of the effects derived from similar inventions to his, Leonardo’s legend is an inspiration to those who seek new technologies.
Annotated Bibliography
Beaver. “Leonardo da Vinci Inventions.” Stupidbeaver.com. 5 July 2008.
fightglobalwarming.com. 1 February 2009. <http://stupidbeaver.com/leonardo-da-vinci-inventions/>
This is a biographical article about Leonardo that starts with an overview of him, and then goes on to describe in depth a few of his inventions. The article also talks a little about how influential his inventions and anatomical drawings have been, as well as explaining why more of Leonardo’s inventions weren’t actually built in his lifetime. The page also has some pictures of models of his inventions, and drawings of others.
Heidelk, Jake. “Inventions and Inventors of the Renaissance.” Associated Content
Society. 31 October 2008. TurboTax. 1 February 2009. <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1150424/inventions_and_inventors_of_the_renaissance.html?cat=37>
This article discusses many renaissance inventors, and Leonardo is one of them. It talks about his inventions, his flying machines, his ideas involving water, and a little of his philosophy about people and war.
Sanfilippo, Eddy. “Impact analysis of the effects of LEONARDO DA VINCI mobility
measures.” YouthPartnership. 19 May 2008. Education and Culture GD. 1 February 2009. <http://youth-partnership.coe.int/youth-partnership/news/news_26.html>
This website is about a vocational training program (the Leonardo da Vinci) program, that has been established in Europe by the European Commission, and is one of the most widespread across Europe. The program is supposed to train youths or migrants with skills for different vocations, and build a skilled workforce across the EU. I decided to include this site because it helps to showcase the continuing effect Leonardo has today: inspiring progress, and developing skills and technology.
Sedivy. “The Life, Art, Inventions, and Anatomical Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci
1452-1519.” Mr. Sedivy’s Highlands Ranch History. 16 September 2002. Tripod. 1 February 2009. <http://mr_sedivy.tripod.com/davinci1.html>
This is a site from a Colorado High School teacher, and includes a timeline of Leonardo’s Life. It also contains picture and diagrams of many of his inventions and designs. It does not discuss anything, but it provides some factual information.
“Leonardo da Vinci.” BBC Science & Nature. 1 February 2009.
Most of this site appears to have been taken down, but there is still a little paragraph about Leonardo and how he affected the world. This site will probably be of little use.
“Leonardo da Vinci.” The Great Idea Finder. 9 October 2006. 1 February 2009.
This article begins as a biography of Leonardo, and leads into a section about his scientific advances. It discusses some of his inventions, and talks about the effects some of his inventions had, and what effect some of his inventions would have had if they had been built in his lifetime. It also discusses some of the modern applications of Leonardo’s original thoughts.
“Leonardo da Vinci (European Union programme).” Wikipedia. 29 December 2008. 1
This article, while a wiki page, gave a very brief definition of the Leonardo da Vinci program, and provided a link to an official homepage for the program, which I have used. I do not plan on using any information from this page.
“Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks.” PBS Online. 30 May 2003. PBS. 1 February 2009.
This page contains information about a TV special, and I am hoping to be able to view that at some point. In the meantime, it briefly summarizes a little information about Leonardo and his inventions.
“Leonardo Opportunities.” Leonardo European Training for the UK. 11 February 2009.
Laverty, Claire. 11 February 2009. <http://www.leonardo.org.uk/>
This site provided more information about the Leonardo da Vinci program in Europe and the UK.
“Leonardo da Vinci The Invention of the Parachute.” Following the Path of Discovery
Repeat Famous Experiments and Inventions. Rubin, Julian. September 2007. Amazon.com. 1 February 2009. <http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/davinciparachute.html>
This page briefly summarizes Leonardo’s accomplishments, and then discusses in depth his invention of the parachute, and a modern (and successful) test-flight of it over Africa. This article helps to illustrate how Leonardo is still amazing us today: experts didn’t think his parachute design would work, but it actually surpasses normal parachutes in some ways. It also show how much Leonardo has inspired people: five hundred years after his death, we are still studying his diagrams in efforts to advance our own knowledge.
“Models of Invention: The Science Fiction of Leonardo da Vinci.” University of
Technology Sydney. 4 November 2008. 1 February 2009. <http://www.leonardo.uts.edu.au/about.html>
This site is dedicated to an exhibition of Leonardo’s works, and discusses his life, art, and scientific achievements. It possesses some good descriptions and illustrations of his inventions, and discusses to some extent his effect of the world.
“Science and Inventions of Leonardo da Vinci.” Wikipedia. 8 February 2009. 1 February
This site, even though it is on wikipedia, provided me with a summarization and simplification of some of the ideas I encountered on other sites, and I used some of the sources listed in the article’s bibliography for my own research. I do not plan on using any information exclusively from this article, but to use it as a springboard to other sites and sources.
[1] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 306.
[2] Capra, Fritjof. The Science of Leonardo. (New York: Doubleday 2007). 163.
[3] Friedenthal, Richard. Leonardo da Vinci. (New York: The Viking Press, 1959). 55-56.
[4] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 294.
[5] “Leonardo da Vinci.” The Great Idea Finder. 9 October 2006. 1 February 2009.
[6] Capra, Fritjof. The Science of Leonardo. (New York: Doubleday 2007). 185-86.
[7] Heidelk, Jake. “Inventions and Inventors of the Renaissance.” Associated Content Society. 31 October
2008. TurboTax. 1 February 2009. <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1150424/inventions _and_inventors_of_the_renaissance.html?cat=37>
[8] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 292.
[9] Friedenthal, Richard. Leonardo da Vinci. (New York: The Viking Press, 1959). 94.
[10] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 207.
[11] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 272.
[12] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 296.
[13] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 305.
[14] “Leonardo da Vinci The Invention of the Parachute.” Following the Path of Discovery Repeat Famous Experiments and Inventions. Rubin, Julian. September 2007. Amazon.com. 1 February 2009. <http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/davinciparachute.html>
[15] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 308.
[16] Friedenthal, Richard. Leonardo da Vinci. (New York: The Viking Press, 1959). 93.
[17] Hart, Ivor B. The World of Leonardo da Vinci. (New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1977). 349.
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