Leonardo Da Vinci's Bad Ideas 

Terry pratchett had the best description of da Vinci with the character Leonard of quirm. Who is constantly unconsciously doodling terrible functional world changing machines in the margins of books without really being conscious of what he had created

In his biography of Leonardo, Walter Isaacson discusses that Leonardo earned most of his income by staging stage plays. Some historians theorize the many of Leonardo's inventions were designs for stage props. Several of the flying machines look like that could be plausible. Of course that's just a theory. But I think it is an interesting one.

7:28 To quote Fry and professor Farnsworth in Futurama: Fry: "Wow, could that thing really fly!?" Farnsworth: "Of course not, that thing is as aerodynamic as a sofa!"

Editor please stop the glitch fades

That "digital distortion" effect is annoying af .. bzzzzt!

The glitch sound effect volume is what happens when the editor doesn't wear headphones while editing 😮

They should have titled this, "Leonardo Da Vinci's Good Ideas, Most of Which Worked With Some Fine Tuning".

He's one Donatello short of Ninja Turtles.

Feels weird to hear Simon talk about Da Vinci without telling a story about how thought it was Da Vin-see for the longest time

If he had developed a working diving suit, people would've figured out a use for it. To call it a "bad idea" because it didn't make it past the red tape is simply wrong.

No use for a functional diving suit in the 1500s. Hmm... The primary use for the first successful diving suits was salvage operations. As such, if Leonardo's design worked, it would have found some happy customers.

the diving suit would have worked well for looting the ships sunk by a cannon ball.

The most important thing I learned from this is that even da Vinci felt the need to pad his resume.

I think the point is that Da Vinci was able to produce concepts so far ahead of their time that the technology necessary to produce them had not even been invented yet. I don't see any of this as a failure.

Just some feedback from 1 random viewer. I stumbled over the channel a couple of weeks ago, and ended up bingewatching also most every video dating back 1½ year or so. :-) In other words; I really like your content. However, lately you've started using some sort of "breaking up effect", And I can't say why, but it really gets under my skin. To the point where I don't really want to keep watching, because all i'm thinking about, is preparing myself for the next time it comes. It's like nails at a charkboard. 😞

Wow. No advertisements. This is a first in forever. Thx, Simon.

I agree with the other comments. Get rid of the glitch transfers. They serve no purpose.

I hate to be "that guy" but seriously, does anyone like those ridiculous annoying, and distracting transitions? They are so annoying it breaks the flow and presentation of the narrative. It adds ZERO, NADA, NOTHING to the content or presentation quality. Other than the transitions the content on this channel is always fantastic.

4:20 I get it!!! It was to destroy ships carrying gold and then being able to bring up their valuable resources, for which the army would benefit greatly through reinvesting the income into warfare, damaging the economy of the opposition, or even potentially recovering weapons for reuse.

As brilliant as he was he was entitled to make a few mistakes and bad inventions. Most of us can't say the same thing.

There was a show on discovery channel where they built some of his designs, including that tank, pretty cool, most worked, they fixed flaws in some designs and made them work. Really good show

in his defense, he came up with basic ideas and then pitched them to benefactors. if nobody paid him to develop them, he didn't because spending his own money to develop a device that had no buyer wasn't going to feed him. that doesn't necessarily make them bad ideas.

Simon of Kent, the renaissance man of RU-vid

The fact that he *thought* of diving suits *at that time* is *more than mind-blowing!*

IMO, being even that close to a working flight apparatus in 1480 is worth praise, even if his exact models wouldn't have worked without changes and modifications.

Talking about the tank here just gave me ptsd flashback to AC brotherhood and its god forsaken " don't get hit" tank mission. This was fine on my PC with a nice 60 fps but back in the 360, needing to do a 6 min mission first before the tank and 30 fps tank controls made it a nightmare to fully complete it.

A few of what he did invent that are used today: The pawl (Used on gears and is actuated in the transmission on an automatic transmission when 'P' is elected), The tank/armored car. Made Guttenberg's printing press semi automatic. The hang glider. The parachute. Method of using sprockets and chains to drive wheels. A crane that rotated. A type of artillery gun. A cantilever bridge that could be assembled quickly without tools to cross rivers. The diving helmet.

Brilliant! Learned all new stuff today. Thanks Simon and team.

Could we get videos on Jung & Freud's best & worst ideas? Regardless, thank you for everything!

Thanks SideProjects. Good video about Leonardo da Vinci and his wacky inventions! A much lighter subject than recent political articles but, then again we all love human history! Keep em' coming!!

Leonardo da Vinci had a lot of ideas. Like a lot of men throughout history who had a lot of ideas, some of them were quite good. The social contract dictates that we not mention the others. One day, for example, Elon Musk's flamethrower will join that latter list of things better left forgotten.

One of the many theories about DaVinci's ideas beying almost always pretty close, but never actually working, is that he was suffering of eyther ADD, OCD or he was maniac-depressive. Sources of the time would always say that he would study something non-stop, not sleeping for days and eating iregularlly, than, all of a sudden, he would give up half-way. And he would never return to his previous notations; if he decided to study the same subject again he would begin everything from scatch, never building from his previous findings. Not that he would hit a road-block on his studies, he would simply stop that work, just to do it all again later. And it is ofthen mentioned that he used to spend a lot of time on doing nothing, while employed by a patron, sunken in a "pesarous" mood, and would isolate himself in his workshops, refusing to talk to people. Also, some mention that he always had a variety of works unfinished, waiting to be continued later (the Monalisa took some years to be finished), in all kinds of arts and sciences, all at the same time. When he felt like working on them, he would work on all of them at the same time, for a while. So much so that many of his paintings and sculptures were never finished or were finished by other artists, like "The Last Supper". Given that those all indicate simptoms of those 3 conditions, it is possible he suffered from at least one of them.

You say that his flying machines wouldn't have worked without extensive reworks, but I am also quite sure that the Wright flyer was not their first design.

Tough to watch some of these channels without Simon hosting anymore

Failures or not, Da Vinci was a straight up genius for his day....

Leonardo was a genius

Wouldn't call these bad ideas, just bad designs for good ideas

Great content Simon... Can you check your focus? You are slightly blurry to me and I really notice it 😊 the cactus on the shelf is pin sharp.

Leonardo's diving suit could be used to put stakes around harbors to force hostile ships to break formation which then the defending forces could pick one by one.

Da Vinci had nothing over Leonardo of Quirm.

Many present day innovators consider having a multitude of ideas (even bad ones) a good thing, as rejecting an idea offhand is stifling to creativity.

Bad ideas leads to improvement and new ideas. It teaches us what works and what doesn't. Without bad ideas there would be no varieties and excitement in the world.

I remember watching an IMAX film called Adreline Rush at Boston Science Museum's dome-shaped IMAX theater which featured DaVinci' s parachute design being tested.

Marvel Comics did a What If comic, "What If Nick Fury Fought World War II in Space?" The reality shift was something about how Da Vinci was able to make practical use of his inventions, and that led to speeding up scientific knowledge so that we visited the moon in the 1920s. Oh, and the Dark Ages never happened because of this. Which of course is utterly impossible since the technology was simply not there. There was simply no way to create, say, heavier-than-air flight in the 15th century! That was the problem with Charles Babbage coming up with the first computer. The technology just didn't exist for actual practical development. No vacuum tubes or even the means to actually build the contraption. But it would have made an interesting cyberpunk invention.....

In terms of his resume, he may just have had a knack for words. 1- a single board of wood over a small gap 2- using a bigger rock 3- a miniature motor model Potentially, these things fit the descriptions. It's not his fault the employers misunderstood 😂

Love the content, hate the glitch/buzz transitions

Diving suits seem to have been an idea for at least a little time before Davinci as well, I know Talhoffer had a drawing of something similar and it may (IIRC) have been in copies of Bellefortis. The Middlealdercentret in Denmark tested one out with some success; they lean towards it being used for salvage operations :)

My non-Italian brain will forever and ever conflate and confuse Leonardo da Vinci with Galileo Galilei. I have no idea why I have such trouble telling them apart. They are the Dylan McDermott & Dermot Mulroney of the Renaissance.

I remember seeing a documentary maybe 20 years ago where Jacquie Cozens tested the design of Da Vinci's diving suit and found it worked well in shallow water

You sir are relentless. Your videos are among the very best on the interwebs. If you go on vacation, millions will cheer for your much needed rest and are assured that you will return refreshed and rewarded for all these great videos :-)

8:20 I think his parachute perfectly highlights his ideas, unpolished. because it’s the first ideas out to paper, what would be the easiest way to make a parachute? Certainly not cutting and stitching material into a semi round semicircle. Take a bolt of linen, cut out 3/4 triangle, stitch and your done. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he used a square cube and left the bottom open.

Perhaps he got the idea for the pyramid parachute from a source noted in the description itself. Perhaps he had seen a "tent made of linen" as a temporary shelter for a traveler and concluded that the design could be repurposed to arrest a fall if held onto from below by a cross brace.

Ornithopters are very challenging to make even with modern production methods because the means of generating lift are far more convoluted compared to a fixed wing. The flapping motion isn't just swinging a fixed wing shape up and down, because that would generate the same amount of force in both directions, resulting in neutral lift and ending up back where you started. When a bird flaps its wings it creates a large surface area during the downstroke in order to capture and move as much air as possible before pitching the wings upward and folding them in to reduce drag on the upstroke, thus allowing the bird to generate more upward lift than downward lift, sustaining flight in this way. Insects do this solely through adjusting the pitch of their wings and are actually a better biological mechanism to attempt to mimic in order to create an ornithopter. Unfortunately, the necessary stiffness of the wing material for the scale of an ornithopter would be entirely impossible to create with the materials of that time and would be considerably difficult even with modern composites. Not to mention that the force needed would be rather extreme and the flight of insects is able to work properly due primarily to their larger wing surface area compared to the weight of their bodies. If you wanted something like dragonfly wings to be able to lift the weight of an average human then you'd probably end up needing a 10ft wing span, which is impractically large.

😆In da Vinchi's defense, if nobody is paying there is no point in wasting hundreds of man hours debugging designs. But yes, he did have some really bad ideas.

Dear editor: please don't use the transition sound effects. Especially the 'coin' one ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fFIlOWkWTrg.html ) that sounds like something one might hear in a game when making a purchase in a shop. Distracting and unnecessary. Otherwise, great content as always.

The vulture rubbing its butt on Da Vinci's mouth just sounds gross and weird !

1:00 - Chapter 1 - Diving suit 5:10 - Chapter 2 - The many flying machines 8:00 - Chapter 3 - Parachute

Newton .. Bell .. Marconi.. Turning .. ( ideas do not happen in a vacuum )

It’s been a long time since I’ve stumbled across a video with you in it. It’s great to see you still making content

Imagine if he could return to this age and see his ideas and inventions EVERYWHERE in the world😊❤

sorry but need to ask? What would you choose 1) Straping a giant fan on your back jumping off a cliff and hope the parachute releases A) jumping out of a plane, with a squirrel suit on and hope the parachute opens 2) jump off a different cliff in a hang glider with No parachute to worry about 3) bungee jump from a helicopter ( don't worry like jumping off a bridge you never return to the place you jumping from ) B) being towed into the air and cut loose, in a glider and gliding back the earth ( parachutes? ) At this point you can skip to C+ please C) a hot air balloon and a basket ( parachutes ' dude seriously shut up about the leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and michė chute in 1485, we're talking about balloons in 1852 and some dudes flying a plane in 1903 ' are the safest way to earth, that's why... Sorry but the you time lines all wrong ' why ' It least one of the tmnt invented planes, helicopters and ti.e travel ' what? ' Time travel ' dude seriously. How many have we said, stop reading dan brown, its all fiction ' C+1) a Hot air balloon with a basket, as the pilot turns to you and says sorry we're out of fuel and have lose some 'ballast' he calls back to me as I throw him out of the basket. Wait a second we're almost above our house, so we can drop the sand bags on neighbors cars ' Don't ' Okeyyy what if we dropped them infront of someone's house and called down to them " there's a flood coming "...' Dzon't ' Okey.... .... what if I wrap the deflating balloon around a Telegraph pole outside our bedroom window, knocked to wake you on one knee in an open casket with a box of milk tray saying ' because the lady lov...' you close, sorry slam the window in my face screaming i fecking hate those ( sorry was previously mentioned, but this is about the forty second attempt to post, try reminder to us , save please as often as...) Don't you have an issue with updating whilst you're writing and we didn't save Sorry where was we? Oh yes hanging from a parachute hooked on overhead power cables, as we rock from side side we tap on the window again ( same window) ' same window ' Again, at this point we don't understand who's actually the poster of this post C-) a Hot air baboon shaped balloon 4 fours ) back captain William ( dude seriously back doesn't rhyme with William, try " jacks back " but dude we wasn't playing Jacks, we was playing liers dice and jacks back front or any part of him was with us when we was listening and someone shouted four thors C+) a good year blimp 4) jumping off broadstairs pier 5) climbing though and jumping out the seven sisters caves Kingsgate 6) Ramsgate caves, never been there since 8) shell grotto and free toys to grab as you walk out, banned from there ' joke Wright? ' C+1+) 37 minutes later, tap on the other window not the once said window but more like a skylight. You ask 'WHAT' Please look under your pillow. we cry out As the cables break and we fall to the ground You cover your pillow to discover an elephant C3-y) kindar eggs actually with a ring within Q1 still waiting for the answer, once you carm

His parachute design had one major flaw and that was it had no opening in the top

The story I learned regarding the Vitruvian Man is that there was a philosophical question that Da Vinci and others were trying to answer about the body...someone (possibly the person you said in the video) presented an answer and then Da Vinci took his answer and built upon it because he thought it was a good start to figuring out the answer to the question. At least, that's what I remember about the story.

Nothing is more da Vincian than surviving a massive fall only to get crushed by the parachute

Still blows my mind that the parachute actually works.

Simon: no one have test Da vinci flying machine Ezio: hold my beer 😂

Now with my critical comment out of the way I wanted to give you guys some praise. I love hearing that 1 of the most celebrated works and all of humanity is a copy from appear for da Vinci. I think it's so humbling when I was in college and I would be copying other artists work and people would be copying my work to think that something of mine might have been copied at some point that might be valued for some reason is kind of interesting idea.

What you call "bad ideas" are concepts which inspired devices in later centuries which DID work. Tanks, flying machines, etc. Your comment "None of his ideas would have worked without extensive development" is true about EVERY invention -- including great ones. So that doesn't make something a "bad idea".

There are remote control birds that fly. Someone had one in one of Cleetus McFarlands recent videos.

Got a question for you: Why do our irises have coulour? Not just why the colour differs (all the answers go for originally brown and later lack of melatonin...), .. but whats the reason why we dont all we have white eyes with pupils and black irises? Whats the evolutionary reasoning behind our iris needing colour at the first place?

Donatello was my favourite Ninja Turtle, he did machines.

Off topic here but, does Simons glasses have lenses in them ?

"The tank would have been unbearably slow and couldn't operate on rough terrain." Good thing the first actual tanks didn't have problems similar to that. His flying machines were more observations of flight in nature and trying to imitate it than for people to actually use. He did this for both for engineering purposes ss well as his artistic desires. As for the Vitrvian Man, the so-called "golden proportions" had been around since the Greek philosophers discussed things. And as always, something not working isn't failure, it's a way to figure out how not to do something.

Can't think of anything to say because the Temu sunflower swimsuit add is too dang distracting.

If Da Vinci had never had an idea the concept of which could not be proved, or the details made to work out, he really wouldn't have been trying enogh stuff. Sometimes, you have dream it up if only to get it out of the way, or sketch it to get it out of your head, or build it to find out what doesn't work. I think at heart he was using an artist's approach on technical problems some of the time.

Do a video of Euclid please

I could just sit here and watch these videos and listen to Simon all day… Wait… I did

So I’m not the only genius who embellished his résumé. I like the company.

Side projects bad idea 1. Glitch transition

4:12 I'm reminded of a meme image I saved -- 'Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day. Patent "Method and Apparatus for Retrieval of Piscine Life Forms" and you're set for life'

There was an episode of Star Trek: Voyager where they ran with the concept that he was far ahead of his time - they built a glider using one of his designs, but with 24th century frame materials instead 16th century

The Wright Brothers' first plane design was actually driven by manpower, so Leo's flight design was actually not bad, and in fact ahead of the time

Love the Assassins Creed clips.

Most of us relieve ourselves in the water with or without something to go into. Seriously we all know we pee in the pool.

I think the diving suit would have been more practical for salvage operations

Da Vincis Demons is an underrated show that didnt get a real chance to shine

I think the last remark is the most important. These sketches are concepts never experimented with and developed. I'm sure Leornado or someone else with more of an engaging mindset could have tested and improved them had there been enough interest and money in it.

For every good idea ever had, there's a hundred bad ones. The point of brainstorming is to throw everything at the board and see what sticks.

Dunno how these can be considered bad ideas since we now have functioning and useful versions of all of these. Initial concepts should not be mistaken with completed designs.

Lenny from Vinci was an okay guy 4:59 who invented the Urbanmech

The parachute is to hold air for your decent it's shape could only be developed through practice

It's okay to be "that guy", but I actually enjoy it quite often. It doesn't bother me at all, and we are all entitled to our own opinion. It's completely okay (and honestly I encourage) sharing your opinions, just remember it's only your opinion, and even if others agree, that doesn't mean you right or wrong. And Simon has dedicated alot of money and spent much of his time (life) providing content that is free for us. And he may be being paid for it, but he is also providing income for others. I appreciate all of that. So don't worry about being "that guy", speak your mind freely, just make sure to give support as well. (I hope you are going to school or pursuing a career in editing, seems like you are the kind of person that could work for this channel).

sorry, got ahead of myself. I meant the development of the diving suit in the 19th century

you missed the show/documentary that tried to build Leo's ... giant arbalest/crossbow out of wood... AND full sized. plus, somebody DID try and build the 'wooden tank' and it kinda sorta did work... just very poorly. that diving suit would have worked great for inspecting the canals and drydocks and shipyards for Venice.

Any type of creator or artist knows that it takes numerous bad ideas to finally get the one that works

They're not 'projects' they are thought exercises. The fact that he even thought of these concepts out stretches their practicalities or functionalities.

10:44 220 LBS? What the hell did he use for the frame? Waddywood and tungsten fasteners?

What if a lot of these bad ideas were just doodles of thoughts he had?

That crackling sound effect is just awful. Might choose to not finish videos that contain it.

Talhoffer had a similar design for a diving suit in his Codex. Mike Loads did a as faithful as possible recreation of it and it worked. Albeit a little limited and I certainly would not want to be in it under any body of water. But the individual doing the testing in the suit survived unscathed. Further, I am unsure how m any attempts or tests they carried out prior to the successful deployment, if they got it as good as is was on the first go, that would have been a bloody miracle.