Drawings of experiments
by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) show that the Italian genius
was studying
that gravity is a form of acceleration and that he "intuited" the discovery of Isaac Newton (1643-1727) almost
100 years before
the British physicist formulated the law of universal gravitation
Leonardo Da Vinci "intuited" the law of gravity 100 years before Newton (British Museum)
According to research carried out by engineers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and by specialists from the Western Swiss University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Hes-so), Da Vinci was close to defining the gravitational constant "g" with a
97 % accuracy.
Researchers
examined drawings from Codex Arundel depicting an experiment in which
a jug is moved horizontally by pouring material
(water or more likely, grains of sand).
Da Vinci was ahead of Newton
From there, by the existing notes on the material, the Italian is aware that the material that comes out does not fall at a constant speed, but would be accelerated, and that if the jug had moved at the same speed as it the force of gravity takes the material downwards, the latter would have drawn the hypotenuse of an equilateral triangle when falling.
"
Some 500 years ago
, Leonardo da Vinci attempted to unravel the mystery of gravity and its connection to acceleration through a series of ingenious experiments guided solely by his imagination and masterful experimental techniques," the researchers wrote in the study published by the Leonardo magazine.
Researchers examined drawings from Codex Arundel depicting an experiment in which a jug is moved horizontally by pouring material (water or more likely, grains of sand).
They even
ran a computerized experiment
on Da Vinci's data and pointed out that the Italian had correctly used an incorrect equation in his calculations.
If he could have corrected it,
he would have defined the "g" almost perfectly.
"We don't know if Leonardo did further experiments or research on the subject, but the fact that he was tackling problems in this way in the early 16th century shows how advanced his thinking was," Caltech engineer Morteza Gharib concluded.
Newton's Theory of Gravity was created by the physicist between 1665 and 1666, during a quarantine due to the Great Plague of London.
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GML
