Leonardo da Vinci would feel right at home here in the South
Valley region. After recently viewing the Tech Museum of
Innovation’s extraordinary exhibit
”
Leonardo: 500 Years in the Future,
”
I believe that the greatest dreamer of the Renaissance Age would
be truly exited by the technological developments being conceived
in Silicon Valley and the surrounding area.
Leonardo da Vinci would feel right at home here in the South Valley region. After recently viewing the Tech Museum of Innovation’s extraordinary exhibit “Leonardo: 500 Years in the Future,” I believe that the greatest dreamer of the Renaissance Age would be truly exited by the technological developments being conceived in Silicon Valley and the surrounding area.
There’s no question that Leonardo is one of history’s greatest geniuses. And the exhibit at the Tech dives deep into the maestro’s mind to find out what enabled him to come up with some of Western civilization’s most audacious and brilliant inventions of technology and works of art.
I’ve long been fascinated by Leonardo’s genius. One of the things I think that made him stand out from the common crowd is that he had a keen curiosity. He wanted to understand how the world worked. From the flow of water to the flight of birds, he observed everything in the natural world with a studious mind. And unlike most people, he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
Another character quality Leonardo had was that he believed in using his scientific findings to improve the world. He incorporated his observations of physics, optics and anatomy into the machines he designed – most notably his famous flying machines. He also brought his finding into his works of art, thus creating a greater realism and emotional impact on the viewer. His famous “Last Supper,” for example, is a perfect demonstration of Leonardo’s observation on human physiology and psychology. Each of the apostles depicted in the painting set forth some emotional reaction to Jesus’ announcement that one of them would betray him.
I believe Leonardo’s genius also emerged from his obsessive note-taking. Some of the thousands of pages he filled are currently on display at the Tech exhibit on his life, and they provide a glimpse of how brilliantly his mind worked. He jotted down his observations in a backward “mirror writing” style, and then included quick sketches of the natural phenomena he was trying to understand. This practice forced him to use both hemispheres of his brain – the right visual side as well as its left logical side – a technique psychologists today call “whole-brain thinking.”
Leonardo also possessed the courage of creativity. He embraced larger-than-life ideas and took his concepts farther than ordinary mortals would dare to dream. This is demonstrated in his working for 17 years to create for his patron, the Duke of Milan, an equine sculpture which, if it had been cast, would have stood an astounding 24 feet high. The world’s largest horse statue would have pushed the envelope of 15th century foundry technology. Although Leonardo built a full-scale clay model of the horse, the actual statue was never completed because the Duke decided to use the 70 tons of bronze for cannon balls. Leonardo’s plan might have worked. In the 1990s, a group of artists incorporated Leonardo’s techniques to build a similar cast of the horse based on his drawings. You can see it standing outside The Tech as part of the Leonardo exhibit.
If Leonardo da Vinci could time travel 500 years to our present age, I’m sure he would be amazed by the technologies we here in the Silicon Valley area are creating. The engineering in computers would no doubt fascinate him – and he would spend hours inside a Fry’s Electronics store. He studied rivers and creeks and aqueducts to find out how water flowed – and many of his notebooks are filled with sketches of the vortexes created by moving H20. So I’m sure he would take apart a computer and try to figure out how the electrons flowed inside the silicon chip to provide data to users – as well as how the flow of digital information could flow through the Internet.
He was also fascinated by mechanical engineering. No doubt, he would go to one of the car dealerships in Gilroy and look under the hood and try to figure how the combustion of gasoline can be converted into movement. And he was also interested in mathematics – particularly the beautiful designs created in the geometry found throughout nature. So once the American Institute of Mathematics’ “Math Castle” is completed in San Martin, he’d definitely give it a visit.
Leonardo often studied the wind. I have no doubt he’d be fascinated by how modern people are using the principles of aerodynamics he discovered by studying bird flight to develop revolving turbines that turn the wind’s power into electricity. He’d make a point to visit the wind turbines on Pacheco Pass.
In the spirit of engineering ingenuity, I encourage everyone to visit the Tech Museum’s exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci before it closes on Jan. 25. Learning about the great man’s genius will give you a greater appreciation for the technology of his Renaissance world as well as of our modern one.
