• Question: Do you think Leonardo da Vinci had a great impact on science

    Asked by darkmousy to Meeks, Pete, Stephen, Steve, Tom on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Stephen Curry

      Stephen Curry answered on 13 Jun 2010:

      These days he is remembered more for his artistic contributions than his science. He was not a great theorist (like, for example, Galileo or Newton).

      However, there is no doubt that much of his work was very technical. He was certainly interested in human anatomy (not just as a painter) and in engineering. His drawing of a device that looks like a helicopter is rather famous.

      So I think his influence may have been indirect. He was certainly an impressive individual in the breadth of his interests and showed that it was possible to be interested in art and science. That is less common these days, since science has become much more specialised. But I would hope that Leonardo would continue to be an inspiration to scientists to take an interest in art, and to artists to take an interest in science!

      Although my own work in science is very technical, it does demand artistic skills. We work out what protein molecules look like and when writing up our results have to make computer generated drawings of the proteins which — IMHO — can sometimes look quite artistic…!

    • Photo: Steve Roser

      Steve Roser answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      I think he was a goody, but….If you think about the great scientific breakthroughs which changed our understanding, Leonardo didn’t really come up with one of those, like Newton or Einstein. He DID have some great ideas, like the helicopter, and his anatomic drawings and insight via his wonderful art are profound, but his most profound impact seems to be to make mere mortals like I rather inadequate.

    • Photo: Tom Hartley

      Tom Hartley answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      This is really a question about history as well as science – you should know I dropped history in year 9 *goes to wikipediaMATOMO_URL I am really not an expert as you can imagine. He was clearly a very brilliant artist, and his interest in anatomy may have been influential. He had some great ideas for inventions, not all of which came to fruition. He seems to have been a very careful observer and recorder of information, and this is important for science. He was part of a wider upheaval in European culture, which began to seriously question the ideas which had been passed down from the Church for hundreds of years, and reintroduced scientific and philosophical concepts from the Ancient Greeks and other advanced cultures. I think that the cultural changes which Leonardo helped bring about part played a critical role in the development of science in modern Europe. I am not going to pass judgement on him as a scientist, as that would be absurdly arrogant.

      I think we tend to overemphasise the role of individuals in the history of science. There are some people, very, very few, who through sheer imagination and brain power change the way the whole world thinks, but most of the knowledge and understanding we have built up comes from the tiny steps made by less exciting scientists often working in teams, and through the process of science itself; always questioning.

    • Photo: Marieke Navin

      Marieke Navin answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Sorry for the delay on this answer darkmousy!
      We’ve got a Da Vinci exhibition at the moment here at the museum where I work, the museum of science and industry in manchester. You should come and see it if you’re ever this way!

      I think he really did have an impact in science although we perhaps remember him more for being an artist now. Back in Leo’s day though we’re pigeonholed into being one particular profession like we seem to be now. You could be an artist/mathematician/scientist/philospher etc all at the same time – a Renaissance man!

      I just had a trot around the exhibition at MOSI – woah there is TONS of stuff about his science there. Just to summarise, what I learned in the exhibition, is that he was the first to do about the science of flight – he realised that we’re too heavy to fly like birds and his designs foreshadowed gliders, helicopters, aeroplanes. He did loads on optics and music (especially clocks), cranes, hydraulics and mechanics. There is a model odometer that he made – a device to measure distance accurately. He also did a lot of anatomy, he dissected and made drawings from 30 bodies – three and a half centuries later his style set the form in the important textbook Grays Anatomy.

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