leonardo and the coming revolution

[Guest guest]

those who are so sure the coming revolution in western medicine will

not manifest seem to have forgotten about leonardo davinci who invented

many things that later came to be. however in his day, it is not that

the science or intellect did not exist, it was merely that technology

was not yet advanced enough to implement the ideas. As long as the

science is valid, the technology will likely catch up, if history is

any guide. Many people confuse science and technology and thus miss

the big picture. The science of nanobiology is strong in concept and

the technology will arrive one day in our lifetimes.

 

 

The Lesson of Leonardo

 

Efforts to project engineering developments have a long history, and

past examples illustrate present possibilities. For example, how did

Leonardo da Vinci succeed in foreseeing so much, and why did he

sometimes fail?

 

Leonardo lived five hundred years ago, his life spanning the discovery

of the New World. He made projections in the form of drawings and

inventions; each design may be seen as a projection that something much

like it could be made to work. He succeeded as a mechanical engineer:

he designed workable devices (some were not to be built for centuries)

for excavating, metalworking, transmitting power, and other purposes.

He failed as an aircraft engineer: we now know that his flying machines

could never be made to work as described.

 

His successes at machine design are easy to understand. If parts can

be made accurately enough, of a hard enough, strong enough material,

then the design of slow-moving machines with levers, pulleys, and

rolling bearings becomes a matter of geometry and leverage. Leonardo

understood these quite well. Some of his " predictions " were long-range,

but only because many years passed before people learned to make parts

precise enough, hard enough, and strong enough to build (for instance)

good ball bearings - their use came some three hundred years after

Leonardo proposed them. Similarly, gears with superior, cycloidal teeth

went unmade for almost two centuries after Leonardo drew them, and one

of his chain-drive designs went unbuilt for almost three centuries.

 

His failures with aircraft are also easy to understand. Because

Leonardo's age lacked a science of aerodynamics, he could neither

calculate the forces on wings nor know the requirements for aircraft

power and control.

 

Can people in our time hope to make projections regarding molecular

machines as accurate as those Leonardo da Vinci made regarding metal

machines? Can we avoid errors like those in his plans for flying

machines? Leonardo's example suggests that we can. It may help to

remember that Leonardo himself probably lacked confidence in his

aircraft, and that his errors nonetheless held a germ of truth. He was

right to believe that flying machines of some sort were

possible-indeed, he could be certain of it because they already

existed. Birds, bats, and bees proved the possibility of flight.

Further, though there were no working examples of his ball bearings,

gears, and chain drives, he could have confidence in their principles.

Able minds had already built a broad foundation of knowledge about

geometry and the laws of leverage. The required strength and accuracy

of the parts may have caused him doubt, but not their interplay of

function and motion. Leonardo could propose machines requiring better

parts than any then known, and still have a measure of confidence in

his designs.

 

Proposed molecular technologies likewise rest on a broad foundation of

knowledge, not only of geometry and leverage, but of chemical bonding,

statistical mechanics, and physics in general. This time, though, the

problems of material properties and fabrication accuracy do not arise

in any separate way. The properties of atoms and bonds are the material

properties, and atoms come prefabricated and perfectly standardized.

Thus we now seem better prepared for foresight than were people in

Leonardo's time: we know more about molecules and controlled bonding

than they knew about steel and precision machining. In addition, we can

point to nanomachines that already exist in the cell as Leonardo could

point to the machines (birds) already flying in the sky.

 

Projecting how second-generation nanomachines can be built by protein

machines is surely easier than it was to project how precise steel

machines would be built starting with the cruder machines of Leonardo's

time. Learning to use crude machines to make more precise machines was

bound to take time, and the methods were far from obvious. Molecular

machines, in contrast, will be built from identical prefabricated

atomic parts which need only be assembled. Making precise machines with

crooked machines must have been harder to imagine then than molecular

assembly is now. And besides, we know that molecular assembly happens

all the time in nature. Again, we have firmer grounds for confidence

than Leonardo did.

 

In Leonardo's time, people had scant knowledge of electricity and

magnetism, and knew nothing of molecules and quantum mechanics.

Accordingly, electric lights, radios, and computers would have baffled

them. Today, however, the basic laws most important to engineering -

those describing normal matter - seem well understood. As with

surviving theories of gravity, the scientific engine of disproof has

forced surviving theories of matter into close agreement.

 

Such knowledge is recent. Before this century people did not

understand why solids were solid or why the Sun shone. Scientists did

not understand the laws that governed matter in the ordinary world of

molecules, people, planets, and stars. This is why our century has

sprouted transistors and hydrogen bombs, and why molecular technology

draws near. This knowledge brings new hopes and dangers, but at least

it gives us the means to see ahead and to prepare.

 

When the basic laws of a technology are known, future possibilities

can be foreseen (though with gaps, or Leonardo would have foreseen

mechanical computers). Even when the basic laws are poorly known, as

were the principles of aerodynamics in Leonardo's time, nature can

demonstrate possibilities. Finally, when both science and nature point

to a possibility, these lessons suggest that we take it to heart and

plan accordingly.

 

 

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Leonardo da Vinci has been one of my heroes since I've been eight years

old. If what you say is true, who is to say that there are fertile

ideas in Chinese medical literature that will also come to pass in the

future? This is what I am looking for in the traditional sources.

 

A link for those who are interested on Bill Joy's article on

nanotechnology and the future:

 

http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

 

 

 

 

On Apr 17, 2005, at 2:46 PM, wrote:

 

>

> those who are so sure the coming revolution in western medicine will

> not manifest seem to have forgotten about leonardo davinci who invented

> many things that later came to be. however in his day, it is not that

> the science or intellect did not exist, it was merely that technology

> was not yet advanced enough to implement the ideas. As long as the

> science is valid, the technology will likely catch up, if history is

> any guide. Many people confuse science and technology and thus miss

> the big picture. The science of nanobiology is strong in concept and

> the technology will arrive one day in our lifetimes.

>

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

>

>

> On Behalf Of

> Sunday, April 17, 2005 7:37 PM

>

> Re: leonardo and the coming revolution

>

>

> Leonardo da Vinci has been one of my heroes since I've been eight years

> old. If what you say is true, who is to say that there are fertile

> ideas in Chinese medical literature that will also come to pass in the

> future? This is what I am looking for in the traditional sources.

[Jason]

This is a good point, and very valid... As much as enjoy reading modern

journal articles and CM advances I find just as much, not only inspiration,

but pure insight from the classics... I am currently going through the SHL

once again for who knows how many times, and I am getting once again

incredible insights and deeper understanding into my herbal knowledge &

treatments... Our modern TCM zang-fu approach surely misses many of the

nuances, especially in regard to pathomechanism and subtleties of herbs that

are in the SHL... Wow a book that is 1800 years old... Well worth

studying...

 

-Jason

 

 

>

> A link for those who are interested on Bill Joy's article on

> nanotechnology and the future:

>

> http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

>

>

>

>

> On Apr 17, 2005, at 2:46 PM, wrote:

>

> >

> > those who are so sure the coming revolution in western medicine will

> > not manifest seem to have forgotten about leonardo davinci who invented

> > many things that later came to be. however in his day, it is not that

> > the science or intellect did not exist, it was merely that technology

> > was not yet advanced enough to implement the ideas. As long as the

> > science is valid, the technology will likely catch up, if history is

> > any guide. Many people confuse science and technology and thus miss

> > the big picture. The science of nanobiology is strong in concept and

> > the technology will arrive one day in our lifetimes.

> >

>

>

>