Projects of the future in the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

There are activities that you can indulge in without regretting the time spent and for the benefit of the mind. For example, to look at the drawings and sketches of Leonardo da Vinci - "living sketches" of his original ideas and projects, which seem to be innumerable.

In the drawings of the master, we can easily recognize the familiar to us (and for people of the Renaissance - innovative) inventions: from water skis and a diver's suit to a parachute and a glider. Many of his ideas remained "in the project": in the form of images on paper of all kinds of mechanisms, devices and buildings. These drawings are a reliable repository of author's ideas and research. They allow you to look into da Vinci's creative laboratory, get acquainted with his method of work and follow the train of thought, how he set and solved, step by step, complex technical, construction and other problems.

The history of discoveries and inventions testifies to the fact that sooner or later useful ideas are brought to mind and put into practice. A striking example of how this happens is the scientific and technical work of Leonardo da Vinci. A born researcher and inventor, he worked primarily with ideas: some he generated himself, others he borrowed and developed, while always looking for practical application for them.

First, Leonardo drew up a solution plan: he made a sketch of the future structure, reflecting the general idea. Then he closely studied the details, drew sketches and provided them with comments. And finally, I assembled all the parts into a single whole - a ready-made full-fledged illustration. As one of the researchers of the artist's work noted, many of his sketches are "unfinished thoughts about methods and means." Indeed, studying these drawings and drawings, sometimes it is necessary to think out the details and details that are missing or deliberately omitted by da Vinci. But some of them are so verified and accurate that even after five centuries their language is understandable without words. According to the drawings inherited by future generations by the brilliant designer and inventor, modern craftsmen were able to make working models of various devices.

Here is a sketch of the fortress tower (Fig. 1)

To the left of it is a diagram of one of the important details of the building - a spiral staircase. Its design is reminiscent of the famous Archimedes' screw, only the steps are missing! Take a closer look at the drawing and you will uncover the amazing design of Leonardo the architect. Its staircase is double: on one part of it you can climb the tower, and on the other - descend without colliding or even seeing each other. The trajectories of both parts of the staircase are non-intersecting spiral lines (spatial curves twisting around a vertical support - a round pillar in the center of the structure). Each part of the staircase has its own entrance and exit, and its model is a spiral surface, the so-called helicoid. At a real staircase, steps are fan-shaped around the pillar.

A double spiral staircase adorns the royal castle of Chambord in France. Its construction began in 1519, shortly after the death of Leonardo. As you know, he spent the last years of his life in this country, at the court of Francis I, his patron, and was the first royal artist, engineer and architect. It is not known for certain whether Leonardo took part in the design of the grandiose castle. Even if not, experts say, its creators used da Vinci's ideas from the artist's drawings. It is likely that the choice of architects was influenced by his sketch (Fig. 1), made in the late 1480s. There are 77 staircases in Chambord, including several spiral staircases, but only this one has become its real attraction.

Other double spiral staircases are also known. The earliest of them were erected in European cathedrals back in the XIV-XV centuries, but they are inferior to the stairs in the Chambord castle not only in size and decor, but also in simplicity and originality of the design - no one can completely isolate parts of the double spiral staircase from each other until Leonardo succeeded or did not come to mind.

In 1527 the Italian architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger applied the same idea. By order of Pope Clement VII, he began the construction of a huge water tower - the well of St. Patrick (photo above) - in the city of Orvieto in case of its siege and deprivation of access to external sources of water. Here, access to water at the bottom of the well was provided by two opposite entrances, which led to autonomous spiral staircases: one carriage was lowered to fetch water, and the other was used to bring it up. The lighting of the building was natural: the light penetrated in through the many arched windows in the walls of the tower.

Leonardo da Vinci also has more complex architectural compositions of stairs. One of them is like a three-dimensional labyrinth with many entrances and exits. Take a look at the following sketch (fig. 2)

You can see at once four external staircases not connected to one another, "twisting" around a massive square pillar, in which, perhaps, some kind of lifting device is hidden. With amazing ease, the artist combines architecture and geometry of space, combines lines and shapes and creates complete images and self-contained structures.

Da Vinci found another interesting use of the double helix. He used it in the construction of an apparatus for breathing underwater (Fig. 3).

This is an improved version of the breathing tube used by ancient divers. The device consists of a float with a protective floating dome, a mask, breathing hoses and a valve that controls their operation, preventing water from entering. The hose is made of several reed tubes connected by inserts made of waterproof material, and inside it there are double springs - a compact elastic element that, on the one hand, prevents the material from shrinking and losing its shape, and on the other hand, makes the hose flexible.

see also article Photos by Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo was one of the first to use a helical surface in the design of the propeller - the main part with which the aircraft could rise vertically into the air if it was possible to properly untwist the propeller, and at the same time to cope with its instability during lifting. We are talking about a complex helical motion (rotation around a fixed axis and parallel transfer along it, performed simultaneously), but already in relation to the mechanics of flight.

The propeller of Leonardo da Vinci (Fig. 4) is considered the prototype of the modern main rotor, and he himself is the inventor of the helicopter, or, as it is called in Russia, the helicopter. By the way, the word "helicopter" is related to the word "helicoid" and comes from the Greek words ëλικου (spiral, screw) and πτεoóν (wing). It appeared only in the 1860s, almost four centuries after this drawing was made.

Da Vinci could well have borrowed the idea of a "launch" for his design from a "flying turntable" - a toy from ancient China. It was a rod with a bird feather screw at the end. It was spun by hand or with the help of a thread wound on a rod and released. The modern version is a primitive helicopter "fly" (Fig. 5), it is easy to make it yourself.

But the shape of the propeller da Vinci could choose by observing the rotation of the Archimedes propeller (Fig. 6).

Leonardo the engineer, in general, more than once tried to adapt this ingenious invention of the ancient Greek scientist to different mechanisms. For example, I used it as a part of a hydraulic machine. Or as elements of a perpetual motion machine (it was a construction of two screws of different diameters: one by one, the water rose, and the other dropped to the initial level). But then Leonardo abandoned this fruitless venture and came up with a more interesting and useful application for the Archimedes screw.

Leonardo did not consider his design as an aircraft, but investigated how it worked. He was looking for the secret of flight in nature, which creates optimal forms that perform certain functions: he watched for a long time "living machines" - birds floating freely in the sky, described their movements. In his sketches there is a trajectory of a bird rising upward (Fig. 7), which is a helical curve.

Apparatuses equipped with artificial wings and capable of lifting into the air due to the muscular strength of a person (ornithopters, or flies) - this is what Leonardo was most interested in (by the way, the first to try to implement this idea was the skillful master Daedalus, the hero of ancient mythology). Da Vinci repeatedly returned to solving this problem. Unsuccessfully. As a result, he decided to reproduce the simplest way of flying birds - he came up with a glider soaring due to air currents. While investigating the problem of flight, he was interested in literally everything, even such a trifle as the sound made by the wings of a fly! And this was, it seems, the whole Leonardo - the greatest genius of the Renaissance, "the most insatiable curious man of all time", as one of his biographers put it.

The propeller, which Leonardo gave the shape of a helicoid, is mentioned in his famous treatise On Flying. According to the description, the screw should have a metal edging and a canvas covering, and thin long tubes will serve as a frame for the canvas. And then da Vinci adds: "You can make yourself a small model of paper, the axis of which, from a thin sheet of iron, twisted with force and which, when released, causes the screw to rotate." Well, then think out for yourself … Judging by the design details, the screw could be rotated with the help of levers attached to the axis. Or a spring mechanism could "start" it. What is a spring? Yes, the same helix, made in metal, capable of accumulating and giving off energy.

The propeller drawing is one of the most famous in Leonardo's collection of works devoted to the problem of flight. It was studied by both amateurs and specialists: scientists, designers, engineers, inventors. None of the models they built were able to take off by themselves, without an engine. But something else is much more important. Da Vinci's sketch contained an invaluable idea, and centuries later, other inventors and scientists created a real flying machine.

In general, Leonardo has many different useful inventions, unclaimed in his time, forgotten for a long time and then invented anew.

Details for the curious

A helical line is a curve described by a point moving at a constant speed along the generatrix of a cylinder when it rotates uniformly around its axis. This curve intersects all generators at equal angles. If on a sheet of paper we draw several parallel straight lines at an angle to its larger side at the same distance from each other, and then roll the paper into a cylinder, connecting the two smaller sides, then on its surface we will see a helical line: the right one, if, when viewed from below, it twists counterclockwise, or left - if twisted in the opposite direction.

When rotation around a fixed axis with simultaneous transfer along it is performed not by a point, but by a line, it describes a helical surface in space. So, a segment sliding with one end along a helical line, and with the other along the axis of the cylinder, describes a helicoid (from the Greek ελικος - spiral, gyrus).

A cylindrical helix can move along itself. It defines the shortest path between two points of different generatrices on the surface of the cylinder. The helicoid has similar properties. It slides on its own and has a minimum area for a given outer boundary. Simplicity, flexibility, dynamism, "economy" - thanks to these properties, screw forms are common in nature (remember at least the "double helix" of DNA molecules and climbing plants) and are widely used in practice, especially in technology (from a spring and a corkscrew to a meat grinder screw and propeller).

The main rotor is a propeller with a vertical axis of rotation - the source of the helicopter's lift. With its help, flight control and landing of the apparatus are carried out. The idea of using a rotating propeller for flights originated in ancient times and was popular in Europe in the Middle Ages. The design itself had "blades" and looked like a propeller.