Leonardo da Vinci's sketches, which date back to the early 15th century, show that the polymath could have grasped gravity long before the phenomenon was discovered by its renown proponent, Isaac Newton.
Theory of Gravity
While English mathematician Isaac Newton is the globally recognized scientist who discovered gravity, pieces from Leonardo da Vinci reveal that the polymath may have grasped it earlier. The Daily Mail reports that a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) looked into the polymath's ancient notebooks. Upon analyzing these pieces, they discovered that da Vinci had previously come up with experiments that showed how gravity works in acceleration. In fact, the polymath showed a gravitational constant with an accuracy of around 97%. The study was included in the Leonardo publication.
Leonardo da Vinci lived from 1452 until 1519, way before both Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton lived. He was ahead of others when it came to looking into such a phenomenon. Hence, it may not be surprising for the esteemed polymath to have understood gravity.
Caltech reports that the authors think that what hindered da Vinci's pursuits from conclusively shedding light on gravity were the tools that he had. He did not have any means to accurately gauge the time when objects were falling.
Leonardo da Vinci's Understanding of Gravity
The polymath's experiments were first found by Hans W. Liepmann professor Mory Gharib, who teaches aeronautics and medical engineering, within the Codex Arundel. Gharib looked into the visualization flow techniques of the polymath in early 2017 when he spotted various sketches that demonstrated triangles from particles being poured from a jar.
Gharib notes that what was particularly intriguing to him was the 'Equatione di Moti' statement found on the isosceles right triangle's hypotenus. He was interested in what the polymath could have meant by such a phrase.
The professor worked alongside now-assistant professor Chris Roh, who was a postdoctoral researcher during the time of study, and Flavio Noca, who is from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland. Noca offered translations of the Italian writings as the team looked into the diagrams of the manuscripts.
In his sketches, the polymath illustrated an experiment that involved a moving water pitcher that followed a straight path that was parallel to the surface. The pitcher then dumped granules or water as it moved.
His illustrations clearly show that he knew that the sand or water would not fall with a constant velocity but would accelerate. The sketches also revealed that he knew how the material's acceleration moved vertically downward.
When the picher moves at a consistent speed, the falling material creates a vertical line. Hence, there will be no triangles that form. Moreover, if the pitcher's movement accelerates at a consistent rate, the created line comes up with a slanted straight line that ends up with a traingle. Da Vinci also illustrated in a key diagram that if motion accelerates at a rate that mirrors how gravity accelerates the material that is falling, an equilateral triangle forms. This was what the note 'Equatione di Moti' referred to: equivalence or equalization of motions.
Overall, the polymath tried to describe acceleration in a mathematical sense. However, the polymath did not accurately hit the mark. Roh states that da Vinci showed that the distance of the falling object was proportional to "2 to the t power" rather than to t squared. While it was wrong, Roh notes that they discovered that da Vinci used the wrong formula in the right way.
Gharib notes that though they do not know if da Vinci looked deeper into this, evidence of da Vinci's wrestling with this during the 15th century shows how forward-thinking the polymath was.
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