![]() A recorder was like a larynx in the throat. He noticed that a fetus in a womb looked like a seed in a shell, Isaacson writes. He also used his observations of nature to make connections among phenomena. ![]() Da Vinci and Verrocchio’s The Baptism of Christ (1472–75). His studies of the body, animals, motion, shadow and light, perspective and proportion helped him better understand what he was seeing in front of him, and render it in art more accurately and finely than anyone else of his time. First, he was able to use what he learned from looking at nature to paint and draw. “There can be no doubt that this honor would have been bestowed on Leonardo da Vinci had he published his scientific writings during his lifetime, or had his Notebooks been widely studied soon after his death.ĭa Vinci’s emphasis on empirical observation also helped him improve his art. “Galileo, born 112 years after Leonardo, is usually credited with being the first to develop this kind of rigorous empirical approach and is often hailed as the father of modern science,” the historian Fritjof Capra wrote. That’s why Isaacson calls da Vinci “an exemplar of this scientific method.” He goes on: When he became fascinated with the idea that he could invent flying machines, three and a half centuries before the Wright brothers flew the first airplane, he observed various birds and filled notebooks on the function and speed at which their wings flapped. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Paris Manuscript,” created between 15. He recorded his observations, looked for patterns among them, and then tested those patterns through additional observation and experimentation. Never formally schooled, “he preferred to induce from experiments rather than deduce from theoretical principles,” Isaacson explains. To learn about the world, da Vinci blended his own observations with experimentation. He wondered about questions “most people over the age of ten no longer puzzle about” - for instance, how the tongue of a woodpecker works. He wanted to know about everything around him, in minute detail, Isaacson writes. Simon and Schusterĭa Vinci was obsessed with observing and understanding phenomena in nature, from the proportions of the human body to how the muscles of the lips moved. Isaacson explains how loving science and applying the scientific method to observing the world was really what made da Vinci a great artist and, Isaacson argues, a genius. Yet what is most thrilling is getting to know da Vinci the scientist. We come to see da Vinci as not only an inventor of musical instruments and early flying machines, but also an obsessive notebook keeper and vegetarian, who had trouble finishing many of the projects and paintings he started. The outstanding biography - from the same author who brought us Steve Jobs and Einstein - dissects the life of the complicated Renaissance artist with exquisite detail. If you’re still looking for a Christmas gift for the science nerd in your life, consider Leonardo d a Vinci by Walter Isaacson.
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