"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath. He was an expert mathematician, engineer,
inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Leonardo
has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man whose
seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention. Leonardo is
revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized a helicopter, a tank,
concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory
of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible
during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin
winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of
manufacturing unheralded. As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in
the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.