Fascinating historical fact about valve science

[PapaHappyStar]

I found this fascinating bit of info and a great illustration:

Leonardo da Vinci ( the artist, scientist, inventor and one of the greatest minds who ever lived ) sketched the aortic valve, modeled and understood its morphological and functional behavior and probably also its pathologies ( he wrote of a bicuspid AV ) in the 15th century. Here are some illustrations by him:

These are taken from:

http://www.hmc.org.qa/hmc/heartviews/H-V-v3 N2/8.htm

the write-up is worth reading as well

 

[Karlynn]

That is so fascinating! He was certainly an incridibly intelligent and curious man.

 

[bvdr]

Thanks! I love information like this. It is amazing isn't it?

 

[geebee]

I read a book, "The Door Into Summer" by Robert Heinlen. It was about time travel and talked of the development of the device used for it. This device was intended to move people into the future.
During the intitial testing, one of the people on the project was a man named Leonard Vincent. The device malfunctioned and he was acidentally send back to the 15th century. Once the main character found out about this mishap, he started to put "2 and 2 together" and the results were obvious.
Now, I realize that RIGHT NOW, we know nothing of time travel. However, should something crazy happen in the future, it might explain a lot of the almost unbelievable knowledge of such geniuses.
Just some food for thought.
Smiles,
Gina

 

[Guest]

Hmmm...that is interesting!

*pauses*

Anyone else notice how the bottom left figure in that first depiction (with the redish/brown hue) looks like a peace sign?

Correlation, perhaps?


Cort, "Mr MC" / "Mr Road Trip", 31swm/pig valve/pacemaker
'72/'6/'9/'81/'7, train/models = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort/
MC Guide = http://www.chevyasylum.com/mcspotter/main.html

 

[PapaHappyStar]

During the intitial testing, one of the people on the project was a man named Leonard Vincent. The device malfunctioned and he was acidentally send back to the 15th century. Once the main character found out about this mishap, he started to put "2 and 2 together" and the results were obvious.

Nice storyline except for:

and

the work of transcendental genius.

Time travel is interesting -- there was a grad. student in our department ( extremely bright but a bit on the flaky side maybe -- a theorist ) who maintained he had a nice solution for some of the paradoxes involved.

 

[Harpoon]

geebee>>That's great except for one thing, according to most arguments made by the major physicists of our time (and times before our own) time travel just isn't possible in that sense. Basically, the only way it can be done is by approaching the speed of light and in that case, you're only going forward, not back.


DaVinci was a man who was given the opportunity to delve into the world around him all the time, without worrying about making a living to support himself. He had an insatiable curiosity and an almost childlike desire to learn EVERYTHING he could learn about EVERYTHING.

Genius doesn't do him justice really.

He was also a bit insane and possibly dyslexic.

Among his many endeavors, he dissected a number of human and animal cadavers in his time which was about as radical as you can get for the period. No one knew anything about the human body, how it worked, why it worked. Most of what was "known" was assumed based on lore and religious supposition, not real facts or observation. As I recall, daVinci also got into trouble a few times for his anatomy studies.

Interestingly enough, many of his illustrations are commonly used in medical texts and art illustration today. Among many firsts, he was probably the first medical illustrator.

 

[geebee]

"Just tryin' to keep the conversation lively".
I am a huge scifi buff so I am fascinated by a lot of the stories. I am also not great at scientific things (I leave that to my SO Chris - the engineer). I agree that Leonardo was probably not a time traveler but Heinlen had some interesting thoughts.
Da Vinci's mind was so far out there that I don't even have a word that properly describes it (genius came to mind) and I probably shouldn't try.
I just know that walking through the Lourve museum I was in such awe at his talents (and that was just a tiny portion of his work) that I almost started crying.
It's great that someone started thinking of "us valve folks" as far back as the 15th century!!
Smiles,
Gina

 

[PapaHappyStar]

"Just tryin' to keep the conversation lively".
I am a huge scifi buff so I am fascinated by a lot of the stories.

I am a big sci-fi fan as well -- I think I read the story you are talking about as well. You must have heard of the "killing your grandmother" paradox ( gruesome but effective ) illustrating the causality violation inherent in time travel to the past. Sci Fi authors use a lot of strange ways to get around this paradox and keep the readers disbelief in suspension

I agree thats a nice precept for a story though -- and seems plausible given who he was talking about -- the scope of Leonardos talents is unreal.

 

[geebee]

My SO Chris said I should respond by saying that "time travel is no more bizarre a concept than multi-dimensional string theory".
I have no idea what that means.
Smiles,
Gina

 

[PapaHappyStar]

My SO Chris said I should respond by saying that "time travel is no more bizarre a concept than multi-dimensional string theory".
I have no idea what that means.
Smiles,
Gina

They are probably related, the grad. student I was talking about earlier was a string theorist, the best string theorists are really, really good at suspending everyones disbelief ( leads you to think maybe thats what truth is ).

There are lots of theories floating around in "Fundamental Physics" that people find bizarre, this is probably because we have hit a problem so intractable that the plausible avenues to solving it are close to being exhausted and what remain are what seem to us implausible scenarios ( string theories, multi-verses, large extra dimensions etc. ).

Maybe what nature is asking us is to (again) let go of our prejudiced view and try to understand concepts that seem just a tad bit unreal to us now. This was a problem in the times of all revolutionary physicists who wanted to change accepted world view: Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein. Its a fascinating time to be studying science.

 

[geebee]

Burair,
I think you and Chris are going to get along great 'cuz I have NO idea what you said and he seemed to love it. Also - from Chris - "spoken like a true particle physicist".
Smiles,
Gina