ADRENALINE RUSH: THE SCIENCE OF RISK - Big Movie Zone

PART 1 / QUICK JUMPS / LEONARDO DA VINCI : INNOVATION AND FLIGHT
Leonardo
DA VINCI
Innovation and Flight
Born in a small Italian town in 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was a
brilliant painter, an engineer and an architect. His Mona Lisa
may be the best known painting in the world. He also was an
accomplished musician, a botanist, an expert in human anatomy,
and even an event organizer for princes and kings.
His irresistible drive to invent, to find new ideas and new
techniques, led him to create designs for industrial machinery,
submarines and diving gear, clocks and cranes, water pumps
and drills, and especially, all types of flying machines.
As an innovator, Leonardo constantly took chances, and often
faced failure. His mural masterpiece, The Last Supper, has
almost been lost because he tried out a new kind of painting
that quickly started flaking. Many of his designs never went
beyond the drawing stage, and some could indeed result in
dangerous or unworkable machines.
Yet his efforts were so inspiring that they even led a modern
group of risk-takers to test one of his most original inventions:
the parachute. Not too many people still drive innovation,
some five hundred years after their death!
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