Wednesday, January 11, 2012

#153 Strange Phenomena Engaged my Thought


I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed on the tops of mountains along with the imprints of coral and plants and seaweed usually found in the sea. Why the thunder lasts a longer time than which causes it and why immediately on its creation the lightning becomes visible to the eye while thunder requires time to travel. How the various circles of water form around the spot which has been struck by a stone and why a bird sustains itself in the air. These questions and other strange phenomena engaged my thought throughout my life. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

'Da Vinci grew interested in human air travel in his 30s and devoted many hours to developing his designs for flying machines. Using nature as a starting point, he studied how birds, bats and insects fly as one way of understanding aerodynamics. The sketch here is of the wings of a glider, which appears to be based on da Vinci's study of bat wings.'

Maxim of the Day

The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas. ~ George Santayana