Da Vinci's Inventions?

What would happen if people had actually taken him seriously about his inventions. He designed helicopters, tanks, submarines, and other war machines; many of this have been proven to work, though sometimes with small modifications (apparently, he deliberately left this errors to prevent unauthorized people from using his designs).
 
Most of them would very likely have failed, or proven useless. The real problem with Da Vinci is that the legend and the reality are so hard to prise apart. A lot of engineers were workling on things like him, and he was a very good one, but not the lone genius centuries ahead of his time. It's just that hs notebooks were of such artistic value they captured the modern imagination.

All in all, probably not too much difference.
 
Well, in actuality, a lot of his inventions were taken quite seriously. He had quite a good career there for a while in Venice employed as an engineer, after all.

Most of them would very likely have failed, or proven useless.

Indeed. While he was a good engineer, a lot of his ideas simply couldn't be built using 1500 AD technology, engineering or techniques.
 
At best, he could have improved current weapons, to either be a bit faster, accurate, lighter, whatever. Things that technology at the time could do. For example, design cannon that don't blow up in ones face, and are slightly more accurate. His ideas could have been used to start some ideas quicker, but its unlikely we'd have seen helicopters dropping grenades at Breeds Hill during the ARV with his advances. At best, younger versions of flintlocks being devleoped ahead of time in history may be possible.
 
Leonardo had a brilliant and innovative mind, in a capricious sense, but he personally didn't have the determination to doggedly see any of his forward thinking drawings turn into reality in his own hands. His helicopter could have been turned into a child's toy, no more, and his ornithopter still remains to be made full size due to stress factors which preclude it's practicality. Engines of some kind would have to power other creations, and they didn't exist and he didn't know how to make them. He was alone in his creations, as the only dreamer of his kind, and lacking a throng of like-minded, but more determined co-creators, his drawings were doomed to remain unevolved. His actual work in engineering was public works of a fairly pedantic variety unlikely to get anyone excited too much.
 
Brilliant, but thwarted...

Like the unfortunate Mr Babbage, LDV's era lacked the technology to implement many of his notions effectively. As power sources, all LDV had were people and beasts of burden, literally a couple of horse-power-hours max. Besides, he seemed unable to stick to any project long enough to see it through to completion. He'd get bored and/or frustrated, then leave...

One tangential example: The Wright Brothers used bicycle technology to build a series of bigger, stronger and better gliders, tweaking these 'kites' until they could control them. They built a wind tunnel to check established aerofoil theory, found that was wrong and went from there. Their almost-forgotten mechanic built them a remarkable internal combustion engine with unheard-of power/weight. Even so, their Flyer needed a catapult launch, and still barely flew...
 
Absolutely nothing. Da Vinci was simply ahead of his time, the society he was in simply didn't have the industrial or population base to take advantage of his innovations.
 

Sandmannius

Banned
What would happen if people had actually taken him seriously about his inventions. He designed helicopters, tanks, submarines, and other war machines; many of this have been proven to work, though sometimes with small modifications (apparently, he deliberately left this errors to prevent unauthorized people from using his designs).

There's a show on the Discovery Channel where a team of engineers build Da Vinci's "inventions", none of them seem to work. Most of Leonardo's inventions were merely sketches inspired by his imagination, fascinating yes, but worth anything, no.
 
Sadly, as Italian ( and Tuscan), i hereby admit that Leonardo even if he had the occasion to put into reality his projects, he will failed to convince the Moor or Francis I starting a mass production of his weapons :(
 
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