Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) was an Italian polymath, painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, architect, and possibly the first true futurist. He was regarded as the epitome of the "Renaissance Man".

The era in which he lived, the Renaissance, had religious belief and dogma dominate science, and this made his technological ingenuity and designs even more remarkable.

Some of what he conceptualized in over 13,000 pages of notes and drawing (most of which were not published or realized at the time) were vastly ahead of their time:


 * flying machines such as a flapping ornithopter and a machine with a helical rotor (helicopter)
 * a parachute and hang glider
 * a type of armored fighting vehicle
 * concentrated solar power
 * an adding machine
 * hydraulic pumps
 * reversible crank mechanisms
 * finned mortar shells
 * a steam cannon
 * a giant crossbow
 * the wheel-lock musket (the precedent of the flintlock musket)
 * mechanical principles using leverage, cantilevering, pulleys, cranks, angle gears, rack and pinion gears, parallel linkage, lubrication systems, momentum, centripetal force, friction and the aerofoil
 * the viola organista was the first bowed keyboard instrument
 * anatomy, which would have inspired medical science and biomechanics
 * an adding machine with thirteen digital wheels; if one turned a crank, the gears inside turned in sequence performing arithmetic calculations; the machine was built in 1968 and it worked
 * a warrior automaton that could sit up and move its arms, neck, and jaw; built later in the 1950s

See also:

Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci