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I can't help but notice that you failed to respond to what I wrote. I already agreed that he might be an excellent painter. For the fourth time now, I'm not in

by jules 15y ago

I can't help but notice that you failed to respond to what I wrote. I already agreed that he might be an excellent painter. For the fourth time now, I'm not in a position to judge that, so I'll take your word for it. > It's cinematic. 500 years before the camera. I never considered da Vinci to be a particularly realistic painter -- his faces look like they're made of wax and his perspective drawing is off -- I thought that was why people find his paintings special. But thanks for the explanation. The point is that da Vinci is deified as "renaissance man", that is, a genius in science, engineering and mathematics as well as art, not just as a painter. For this I see no evidence whatsoever. I provided a concrete list of the contributions of Newton. I could do the same for Gauss and Euler and Euclid and Galilei and many others. What are da Vinci's supposed contributions to science, engineering and mathematics that are in any way comparable to those of Newton, Gauss, Galilei, Einstein or Euler? Concrete ones, please. If you can't, then consider why that is. Why can I give great concrete contributions of all those people, yet you can't do the same for da Vinci? Might the reason be that there are none? Da Vinci: great painter? Yes. Drew the occasional doubtful machine? Yes. Great mathematician? No. Great scientist? No. Great engineer? No.

commieneko 15y ago
Can't see where I didn't respond to what you wrote. If you mean I didn't break it down into quotes, an anal compulsive check list of points and responses then, yes, I didn't respond to what you wrote. I took what you wrote as a whole and composed a response as a whole. If you are looking for the list, I'm going to disappoint you again. If you mean, specifically, that I didn't respond to what you wrote about Da Vinci's painting ability, well, you've said both that he was a good artist and that he was mediocre; and then repeated the performance again. I really don't care whether you appreciate his art or not. The rest of the world seems to have reached a consensus on that. A discussion of realism, naturalism, and abstraction, and their relative merits and practitioners, while fun, is way more involved than I'm willing to go into for a wildly careening off topic post. But go and actually look at a pre-Da Vinci icon. No, really do it. If you don't I've no more time for you. You tell me what the differences are, or their lack. Da Vinci defines the term Renaissance Man. He had his nose into everything. He was prior to the likes of Galileo and Newton and a departure from Aristotle and Plato. This really is covered in most undergraduate history and philosophy courses. If you want a discrete list of Da Vinci's major works and his claim to fame, well, Wikipedia is your friend. I'm not going to do your homework for you, but here, let me get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Leonardo_da_Vi... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_inventions_of_Leonardo_da_Vinci http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_inventions_of_Leona... By no means stop there. And the other "Renaissance Men" are also worthy of study. Da Vinci didn't operate in a vacuum.
- monjaro 15y ago
  You're still not really addressing Jules's main point, which is that Da Vinci made no major contributions to math or science. To compare him to Newton is absurd, as any mathematician or physicist will tell you. A large portion of a first-year engineering curriculum is spent learning things that Newton discovered (that is, calculus and classical mechanics). I read through the wikipedia page you provided, and none of the scientific results even approach the significance Newton's work. I have no problem with his artistic work being appreciated, but I am always confused about why people seem to think his work in any other area was important.
  - commieneko 15y ago
    Actually it would never have occurred to me to directly compare Newton and Da Vinci's specific works. If you will look back to the dawn of the thread, I was comparing Da Vinci to Steve Jobs; specifically their achievement in changing the nature of human thought. (Just for the record, I'd give Da Vinci the edge in that comparison...) Jules wanted to know why people thought Da Vinci was so great and posited that he was a mediocre artist, and that his science/engineering were bogus. Of course, in the modern sense, Da Vinci wasn't a scientist, and a very different kind of engineer. Galileo, Newton, et al. gave those areas of thought their modern sense. Kepler wasn't a scientist in the modern sense either, but he was essential for the later astronomers to do what they did. If he hadn't done what he did then someone else would have had to. You can throw out the Greeks and a most of the Islamic theorists by the same logic as you throw out Da Vinci's achievements. Or for that matter, throw out Newton, as he's clearly been superseded. What a bunch of amateurs! I'm not talking about current practice and theory. And I'm not talking about a popularity contest as to who's your favorite intellectual superhero or a video game where players are leveling up to higher planes. I'm talking about the history of human thought and its milestones. People in the past thought very differently than they do today, and I don't just mean that they believed different things. Da Vinci's approach to visualization and observation were singular and in advance of his times. He was a bellwether of things to come. And that's why people hold him in high regard.
- monjaro 15y ago
  You're still not really addressing Jules's main point, which is that Da Vinci made no major contributions to math or science. To compare him to Newton is absurd, as any mathematician or physicist will tell you. A large portion of a first-year engineering curriculum is spent learning things that Newton discovered (that is, calculus and classical mechanics). I read through the wikipedia page you provided, and none of the scientific results even approach the significance Newton's work. I have no problem with his artistic work being appreciated, but I am always confused about why people seem to think his work in any other area was important.

by jules 15y ago

commieneko 15y ago

Can't see where I didn't respond to what you wrote. If you mean I didn't break it down into quotes, an anal compulsive check list of points and responses then, yes, I didn't respond to what you wrote. I took what you wrote as a whole and composed a response as a whole. If you are looking for the list, I'm going to disappoint you again. If you mean, specifically, that I didn't respond to what you wrote about Da Vinci's painting ability, well, you've said both that he was a good artist and that he was mediocre; and then repeated the performance again. I really don't care whether you appreciate his art or not. The rest of the world seems to have reached a consensus on that. A discussion of realism, naturalism, and abstraction, and their relative merits and practitioners, while fun, is way more involved than I'm willing to go into for a wildly careening off topic post. But go and actually look at a pre-Da Vinci icon. No, really do it. If you don't I've no more time for you. You tell me what the differences are, or their lack. Da Vinci defines the term Renaissance Man. He had his nose into everything. He was prior to the likes of Galileo and Newton and a departure from Aristotle and Plato. This really is covered in most undergraduate history and philosophy courses. If you want a discrete list of Da Vinci's major works and his claim to fame, well, Wikipedia is your friend. I'm not going to do your homework for you, but here, let me get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Leonardo_da_Vi... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_inventions_of_Leonardo_da_Vinci http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_inventions_of_Leona... By no means stop there. And the other "Renaissance Men" are also worthy of study. Da Vinci didn't operate in a vacuum.

monjaro 15y ago
You're still not really addressing Jules's main point, which is that Da Vinci made no major contributions to math or science. To compare him to Newton is absurd, as any mathematician or physicist will tell you. A large portion of a first-year engineering curriculum is spent learning things that Newton discovered (that is, calculus and classical mechanics). I read through the wikipedia page you provided, and none of the scientific results even approach the significance Newton's work. I have no problem with his artistic work being appreciated, but I am always confused about why people seem to think his work in any other area was important.
- commieneko 15y ago
  Actually it would never have occurred to me to directly compare Newton and Da Vinci's specific works. If you will look back to the dawn of the thread, I was comparing Da Vinci to Steve Jobs; specifically their achievement in changing the nature of human thought. (Just for the record, I'd give Da Vinci the edge in that comparison...) Jules wanted to know why people thought Da Vinci was so great and posited that he was a mediocre artist, and that his science/engineering were bogus. Of course, in the modern sense, Da Vinci wasn't a scientist, and a very different kind of engineer. Galileo, Newton, et al. gave those areas of thought their modern sense. Kepler wasn't a scientist in the modern sense either, but he was essential for the later astronomers to do what they did. If he hadn't done what he did then someone else would have had to. You can throw out the Greeks and a most of the Islamic theorists by the same logic as you throw out Da Vinci's achievements. Or for that matter, throw out Newton, as he's clearly been superseded. What a bunch of amateurs! I'm not talking about current practice and theory. And I'm not talking about a popularity contest as to who's your favorite intellectual superhero or a video game where players are leveling up to higher planes. I'm talking about the history of human thought and its milestones. People in the past thought very differently than they do today, and I don't just mean that they believed different things. Da Vinci's approach to visualization and observation were singular and in advance of his times. He was a bellwether of things to come. And that's why people hold him in high regard.
monjaro 15y ago
You're still not really addressing Jules's main point, which is that Da Vinci made no major contributions to math or science. To compare him to Newton is absurd, as any mathematician or physicist will tell you. A large portion of a first-year engineering curriculum is spent learning things that Newton discovered (that is, calculus and classical mechanics). I read through the wikipedia page you provided, and none of the scientific results even approach the significance Newton's work. I have no problem with his artistic work being appreciated, but I am always confused about why people seem to think his work in any other area was important.