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Madrid Madrid and the Codex Atlanticus --free digital e-Leo.

Mike Ciavarella — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:52:51 -0400

The tiny brick library in Leonardo Da Vinci's hometown is putting 3,000 pages
of the genius' work online in a high-resolution, searchable archive.

The Leonardian Library in Vinci, Tuscany, is making the Madrid
Codices and the Codex Atlanticus -- two collections of
scientific and technical drawings -- available as a free digital archive called
e-Leo.

The EU-financed project will also digitize the Windsor folios and 12
notebooks from the Institut de France for a total of 12,000 pages, creating the
most extensive public online archive of Leonardo's
codes.

It's a powerful resource for amateurs --- Renaissance groupies, crowdsourcers
looking for technical solutions -- who make half of all requests to the library
in the hamlet where Leonardo was born.

E-Leo won't be putting lone librarian Monica Taddei out of a job anytime
soon, though.

Taddei often navigates the texts for experts in technical fields looking for
sketches of things like valves or siphons. The Madrid Codices are
especially fertile for designs.

Alas, e-Leo is not quite ready for Dan Brown buffs or 8th-grade homework
assignments.

While the digital notebooks offer advantages to make academics sob with joy
-- semantic search functions, clustered results -- most of them vanish without a
working knowledge of 15th-century Italian. (Forms in English are expected in
about two months; an index of drawings in English is expected by year's end.)

To index Leonardo's designs and irregular vocabulary, text-mining company
Synthema teamed up with engineers from the University of Florence and the
Accademia della Crusca, Italy's national language institute founded in 1582.

"Leonardo had a very modern way of jumbling things together, a true
multitasker," says Federico Neri, head of R&D at Synthema. "There are
technical specifications next to shopping lists. Finding anything used to be
mining in a literal sense." Neri hopes to eventually develop a multilanguage
version to help readers explore the notebooks.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of curiosities for the lay reader.

Even a quick spin may turn up, as it did on a recent once-over of the
Codex Atlanticus, the spring-propelled vehicle thought to be a
precursor to Mars rovers.
And the high-resolution images are arguably as close as one will get to the real
thing unless you're Bill
Gates.

There are references to a sketch in the Codex Atlanticus showing
the backside of Leonardo's comely assistant, Salaino, with
penises speeding at him. When an e-Leo user's attempts to find it fail, Taddei
recites a folio number from memory with the cool aplomb of a professional used
to stewarding odd requests.

Punching it in brings up a crude drawing in a childish hand, clearly not
Leonardo's.

"I'm afraid that's the one, though it's not what you'd expect," Taddei says.
"Hang on though."

The librarian taps in some more numbers then goes off to check a reference in
a book.

"Here's what you want: Try 674r."

The image takes a few seconds to load, but at the center of the page is a
small, anatomical sketch of a young man's privates and a peachy bum.

Worth the effort after all.

Even greater: Leonardo da Vinci

Mike Ciavarella — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:46:35 -0400

Leonardo da Vinci
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Leonardo da Vinci

Self-portrait in red chalk, circa 1512 to 1515. [a]

Birth name
Leonardo di Ser Piero

Born
April 15, 1452(1452-04-15)

Vinci, Florence, in present-day Italy

Died
May 2, 1519 (aged 67)
Amboise, Indre-et-Loire, in present-day France

Nationality
Italian

Field
Many and diverse fields of arts and sciences

Movement
High Renaissance

Works
Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Vitruvian Man

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (pronunciation (help·info)), April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath; a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Born as the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant girl, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, spending his final years in France at the home given to him by King François I.

Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention.[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.[2]

It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper
occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most
parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame
approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.[1] Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man
is also iconic. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small
number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation
with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.[b]
Nevertheless, these few works together with his notebooks, which
contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature
of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists
only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

As an engineer, Leonardo's ideas were vastly ahead of his time. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime,[c] but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.[d] As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

Leonardo as observer, scientist and
inventor

The Vitruvian Man (c. 1485)
Accademia, Venice

Main article: Leonardo da Vinci -
scientist and inventor

Journals

Renaissance
humanism saw no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences and the
arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and engineering are as impressive and
innovative as his artistic work, recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000
pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and natural philosophy (the forerunner of modern
science). These notes were made and maintained daily throughout Leonardo's life
and travels, as he made continual observations of the world around him.[10]

The journals are mostly written in mirror-image cursive. The reason may have
been more a practical expediency than for reasons of secrecy as is often
suggested. Since Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it is probable that it was
easier for him to write from right to left.[v]

A page
from Leonardo's journal showing his study of a foetus in the womb (c. 1510)
Royal Library, Windsor
Castle

His notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and
preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him
money and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on
water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery,
studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies,
rock formations, whirl pools, war machines, helicopters and architecture.[10]

These notebooks—originally loose papers of different types and sizes,
distributed by friends after his death—have found their way into major
collections such as the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de
España, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Biblioteca
Ambrosiana in Milan which holds the
twelve-volume Codex
Atlanticus, and British Library in London which has put a selection from its notebook BL
Arundel MS 263 on the web.[44] The Codex Leicester is the only major
scientific work of Leonardo's in private hands. It is owned by Bill Gates, and is displayed once
a year in different cities around the world.

Leonardo's journals appear to have been intended for publication because many
of the sheets have a form and order that would facilitate this. In many cases a
single topic, for example, the heart or the human foetus, is covered in detail
in both words and pictures, on a single sheet.[45] [ak] Why they were not published within
Leonardo's lifetime is unknown.[10]

Scientific studies

Rhombicuboctahedron as published in Pacioli's Divina
Proportione

Leonardo's approach to science was an observational one: he tried to
understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did
not emphasize experiments or theoretical
explanation. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary
scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he did teach himself
Latin. In the 1490s he studied mathematics under Luca Pacioli and prepared a series of drawings of
regular solids in a skeletal form to be engraved as plates for Pacioli's book
Divina Proportione, published in 1509.[10]

It appears that from the content of his journals he was planning a series of
treatises to be published on a variety of subjects. A coherent treatise on anatomy was said to have been observed
during a visit by Cardinal Louis
D'Aragon's secretary in 1517.[46] Aspects of his work on the studies of
anatomy, light and the landscape were assembled for publication by his pupil
Francesco Melzi and eventually published as Treatise on Painting by Leonardo
da Vinci in France and Italy in 1651, and Germany in 1724, with engravings
based upon drawings by the Classical painter Nicholas Poussin.[4] According to Arasse, the treatise,
which in France went into sixty two editions in fifty years, caused Leonardo to
be seen as "the precursor of French academic thought on art".[10]

Anatomy

Anatomical study of the arm, (c. 1510)

Leonardo's formal training in the anatomy of the human body began with his apprenticeship to Andrea del
Verrocchio, his teacher insisting that all his pupils learn anatomy. As an
artist, he quickly became master of topographic anatomy, drawing many
studies of muscles, tendons and other visible anatomical features.

As a successful artist, he was given permission to dissect human corpses at the hospital Santa Maria
Nuova in Florence and later at
hospitals in Milan and Rome. From 1510 to
1511 he collaborated in his studies with the doctor Marcantonio
della Torre and together they prepared a theoretical work on anatomy for
which Leonardo made more than 200 drawings. It was published only in 1680 (161
years after his death) under the heading Treatise on painting.[10][43]

Leonardo drew many studies of the human skeleton and its parts, as well as muscles
and sinews, the heart and vascular system, the sex organs, and other internal
organs. He made one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus in utero.[43]
As an artist, Leonardo closely observed and recorded the effects of age and of
human emotion on the physiology, studying in particular the effects of rage. He
also drew many figures who had significant facial deformities or signs of
illness.[43][10]

He also studied and drew the anatomy of many other animals as well,
dissecting cows, birds, monkeys, bears, and frogs, and comparing in his drawings
their anatomical structure with that of humans. He also made a number of studies
of horses.

A design for
a flying machine, (c. 1488) Institut de
France, Paris

Engineering and inventions

During his lifetime Leonardo was valued as an engineer. In a letter to Ludovico il Moro he claimed to be able to
create all sorts of machines both for the protection of a city and for siege.
When he fled to Venice in 1499 he found employment as an engineer and devised a
system of moveable barricades to protect the city from attack. He also had a
scheme for diverting the flow of the Arno River in order to flood Pisa. His
journals include a vast number of inventions, both practical and impractical.
They include musical
instruments, hydraulic pumps, reversible crank mechanisms, finned mortar
shells and a steam cannon.[8][10]

In 1502, Leonardo produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot (240 m) bridge
as part of a civil
engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Istanbul. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at
the mouth of the Bosporus known as
the Golden Horn. Beyazid did
not pursue the project, because he believed that such a construction was
impossible. Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his
design was constructed in Norway. On 17
May 2006, the Turkish government decided
to construct Leonardo's bridge to span the Golden Horn.[47]

For much of his life, Leonardo was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight, producing many studies of the
flight of birds, including his c. 1505 Codex on the Flight of Birds, as
well as plans for several flying machines, including a helicopter and a light hang glider.[10] Most were impractical, but the hang glider
has been successfully constructed and demonstrated.[48]

Contents

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Science is not a championship.

RoozbehSanaei — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:08:02 -0400

I think there are many great scientists in the world now!!!. Many of them are more popular and many of them are not. It is very depends on their topic. And also on the innovation of them in that topic. I send a paper by name of “WHY NO NEW EINESTEIN?” weeks ago. But now I think it may be because in new scientific society everybody plays a small role but the result is great. of course many dont play even this small role!

Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727)

Teng Li — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 23:11:12 -0400

Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) was an English physicist, mathematician, mechanician, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher who is generally regarded as one of the greatest scientists in history. Read more...