Leonardo Science

Just completed Fritjof Capra's The Science of Leonardo: Inside the Mind of the Great Genius of the Renaissance. The last book of Capra's I had read was The Tao of Physics and somehow have missed all his books since then. Leonardo's work has seen quite a bit of interest in the last twenty years. I had last read Charles Nicholl's Da Vinci bio: Flights of Mind, which impressed me with its focused detail. ( Nicholl's newest book: The Lodger, about a very thin but interesting slice of Shakespeare's life, is on the stack).

Capra's book looks at Leonardo's life and focuses on how his work predated a number of scientific discoveries hundreds of years later. As Capra points out, only about half of Leonardo's journal pages survive, so it's sometimes impossible to make conclusions about his final results. Some of his intermediate conclusions are wrong, so did he correct them later or not? Capra suggests so, but with little clear evidence. Even so, there are lots of fascinating examples.

As a person with background and interest in physics, I was particular taken by some of his work regarding the nature and behavior of light and the propagation of wave energy, predating Newton. His experience as a painter and a practical anatomist helped him think about how light interacted with our visual system in a number of novel ways. Also notable, his life-long interest and experience with turbulence.

Leonardo did not use symbolic mathematics, and his method of geometric argument, partly described in the appendix, is worth looking at. This also led to a 'science born of experience' that is more akin to today's social sciences than the use of math in the physical sciences. Making it even more amazing that he developed what he did. Since he did not publish and most of his work ended up being disregarded and half was lost, little of it acted as a building block for scientists of the next generation.

An easy read, with only the detail required to make the point, this book makes you want to read more. Capra uses a mix of primary and secondary sources and sometimes it made me want to read the books he quotes instead of his text. Also suggest you also look at Nicholl's book. See also Capra's web site, where Oliver Sacks gives an overview of the book.