Is this Hacker News or &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming?<p>Was hoping for a more informative discussion on one of my intellectual heroes. To me, Da Vinci is up there in the &quot;alien&quot; category along with Von Neumann... there is no field in which he not only excelled, but formed theories that were centuries ahead of their time.<p>Not only in art and engineering, but in medicine and biology. In his notebooks you can find rudimentary ideas about evolution (in his study of fossils, he notes that different layers have different kinds, and that those at the bottom appear to be the oldest; he then notes that the Earth must be much older than his peers seem to think!). In medicine he noted that the arteries of people who suffer from heart attacks are hardened and thickly coated (another discovery that was not made until the 20th century).<p>There is also misconceptions about whether some of his designs worked. It was common back then (before IP laws) for inventors to insert crucial flaws into the schemes, with codified solutions that only they know, so that only they could build the product.<p>For example, his gliding machine, lacking a tail, will bomb. Unless you are astute enough to notice the pages where he writes down his theories about how birds use their tail to stabilize their flight!<p>Lo and behold, after adding a tail, the glider works: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bl.uk&#x2F;onlinegallery&#x2F;features&#x2F;leonardo&#x2F;glider.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bl.uk&#x2F;onlinegallery&#x2F;features&#x2F;leonardo&#x2F;glider.html</a><p>The list goes on. If you haven&#x27;t, I thoroughly recommend reading more about this man. He was not just a great painter and engineer, e was truly a once in a generation mind; and all without formal training -- just his imagination and thought experiments.
Perhaps too far ahead of his time... imagine how far we&#x27;d be had further pursued his wild ideas!<p>His facsimiles are also available in print, and offer a fascinating insight into a one of a kind mind.