Inventions and inventors

Leonardo da Vinci is famous for creating some of the most incredible works of art. But besides being a brilliant artist, Da Vinci was also a scientist, engineer, and inventor. He may well have been the greatest inventor in history. Da Vinci drew sketches and diagrams of his inventions, which he preserved in his notebooks. Unfortunately, almost none of Da Vinci’s inventions were built during his lifetime.

1.Leonardo da Vinchi was....

And, because he never published his diagrams, nobody else knew about them until his notebooks were discovered long after his death. That’s a pity, because da Vinci’s designs were spectacularly ahead of his time. If they had been built, they might have revolutionized the history of technology. In recent years, however, engineers have begun to construct models of da Vinci’s amazing machines and most of them actually work.

2.Da Vinchi's designs were.......

The invention of the parachute is traditionally credited to Leonardo da Vinci although he wasn’t the first to come up with the concept. However, Leonardo’s parachute was more sophisticated and in 2000, the British skydiver Adrian Nicholas proved that it works by jumping with a parachute built according to da Vinci’s sketches.

3.Leonardo's parachute was....

Da Vinci came up with plans for a number of flying machines including ornithopters. Inspired by birds and bird flight, Leonardo’s ornithopter was to be lifted and operated by flapping wings which in turn would be “powered” by muscle energy.

4.Ornithopher da Vinchi was to be....

What da Vinci built were not robots in the modern sense. He built a self-operating machine called automaton which, however, was capable of moving without human help.

5.Leonardo da Vinchi built...

Leonardo’s machine gun was nothing like the modern machine guns. Rather than firing bullets rapidly from a belt, it was meant to fire bullets from individual guns that were connected in three rows, with each row containing 11 guns.

6.Leonardo's machine gun was...

Just like in the case of the parachute, Da Vinci wasn’t the first to come up with the idea of a suit that allows its wearer to breathe underwater. But again, his design is strikingly similar to the early prototypes of the modern diving suit: it consisted of a (leather) jacket, pants and helmet with inbuilt glass goggles, and a breathing tube that supplied air from the surface.

7.Da Vinchi's bathing suit consists of...

The tank was first used during World War I (1914-18) but the concept, or according to some, the first prototype was developed by Leonardo da Vinci more than 500 years earlier. Leonardo’s tank was designed to be equipped by a series of guns and “driven” by the men inside. Although some believe that he didn’t really want the war machine to be built, while others think that he perhaps wanted to prevent the design from falling into the wrong hands

8.Leonardo's tank was designed to be ....... .