{"id":6843,"date":"2016-03-06T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T07:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=6843"},"modified":"2016-03-06T07:00:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-06T07:00:03","slug":"never-doubt-leonardo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/history\/never-doubt-leonardo\/","title":{"rendered":"Never doubt Leonardo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Leonardo's
Leonardo’s weaving machine – long before the industrial revolution changed the world.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like so many things, it all started with Leonardo da Vinci. Then it took a few hundred years for the rest of the world to catch up.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just spent a wonderful day wandering around the museums in South Kensington \u2013 something I highly recommend. There\u2019s far too much to see in one day and it\u2019s all great. But every time I go, something attaches itself to my mind and won\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n

This time, it was in the wonderful exhibition of Leonardo Da Vinci machines at the science museum. And a smart bird. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen models like these before at similar exhibitions, but they never cease to fascinate me. These particular ones are museum pieces in themselves, having been made in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Leonardo was the greatest mind of his \u2013 or any other generation. The machines he envisioned were both improvements on of existing devices, and huge leaps forward in technology. Some were put into practice immediately. These were most often related to war,\u00a0which just goes to show that some things never change.<\/p>\n

Some of his other ideas were never realised in his lifetime,\u00a0but came to be decades\u00a0or centuries later.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the smart bird.<\/p>\n

\"The
The flying machine with wings the emulated the birds Leonardo sketched.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leonardo\u2019s vision of man flying like the birds is well known.<\/p>\n

A keen observer of the natural world,\u00a0he had visions of man flying in much the same way as birds \u2013 with wings that flapped. His flying machines are at the heart of any Leonardo exhibition.<\/p>\n

He dreamed of this kind of mechanical flight in the late 1400\u2019s – and he was wrong.<\/p>\n

When the Wright brothers finally took to the air in 1903, it was with fixed wings.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until recently the rest of the world began to catch up with Leonardo\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

In 2006, a flying machine took off using only the power of its flapping wings\u2026 and in 2010 a man flew 150 meters by flapping mechanical wings \u2013 but only after being first towed into the air.<\/p>\n

Then came the smart bird.<\/p>\n

Built by German researchers, the smart bird was the first mechanical device to take off, fly and land unassisted, all by the flapping of its wings. A real bionic bird, it also turns and glides with the movement of its head directing it’s flight.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s video of the bird in the air here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Like Leonardo, the designers took their inspiration from observing the natural world. In this case, it was that most common of birds \u2013 the herring gull.<\/p>\n

Back to the museum,\u00a0where this bird is on display next to Da Vinci\u2019s plans for a flying machine and the models that were made in the 1850s.<\/p>\n

\"The
The model of the smart bird in the museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We got there in the end, but I have to wonder\u2026 If Leonardo had lived in this world, with its technological marvels beyond even his imaging, what giant leaps forward might he have made? And how long might it then take the world to catch up with Leonardo\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like so many things, it all started with Leonardo da Vinci. Then it took a few hundred years for the rest of the world to catch up. I\u2019ve just spent a wonderful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}