Leonardo da Vinciand theTrue Method ofMagnetohydrodynamicsLeonardo understood the unity of wave phenomena whether electromagnetic or inair or water; more important, he identified the formation of singularities, thatessence of continuing creation, which Newtonians can never fully acknowledge.by Dino de Paoli"I know that many will call this uselesswork, and they will be those whotook no more account of the wind thatcame out of their mouth in words,than of that they expelled from theirlower parts. . . . For so much moreworthy is the soul than the body. <strong>And</strong>often when 1 see one of these men takethis work in his hand I wonder that hedoes not put it in his nose, like amonkey, or ask me if it is somethinggood to eat!"—Leonardo da Vinci, C.A. 117bs
INTRODUCTIONThere is currently a renewed and much deserved interestin the work of Leonardo da Vinci on hydrodynamics. Someof the attempts are honest and worth following. 1 Others aremerely trying to mystify the fact that the scientific methoddid not originate with Isaac Newton and the mathematicallinearization of physical processes. On the contrary, thescientific method was first elaborated as a method by Platoand Nicholas of Cusa and later explicated and applied bythe giants of the European golden Renaissance, most especiallyLeonardo and Johannes Kepler.More recently, the work of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. hasinspired us to uncover the real history of Western scientificthought, looking directly at the primary sources in order tobypass the British monopoly on the history of science. 2 Ourdissatisfaction with the way i n which the history of scientificthinking is normally presented stems from the epistemologicalparadoxes that are created if one assumes the Newtonianmethod as the basis for mastering the laws of theuniverse (that is, the laws of the real universe and not theone logically constructed by linear equations).In the specific case of Leonardo, we discovered somethingthat lies before every eye able to read: Leonardo'smethod of thinking was scientific. Building upon the epistemologicalrevolution of Cusa, Leonardo was able to formulatethe correct questions to be asked in physics. Themethod of Leonardo is universal in the simple sense that itis a method of creative discovery and, as such, an exampleof natural law. This contrasts with the Aristotelian-Newtonianmethod, which classifies the given. One reflects theessence of human beings—creativity; the other reflects theoutlook of a landlord—conservation of given objects. Understandingthis from the standpoint that Leonardo was amaster of the method that created European civilization,we have tried to look at his scattered material in a differentway from that usually done. Typically, Leonardo is presentedeither as a mad artist who had nothing better to dothan go around with a notebook and draw whatever happenedto pass before his eyes, or he is described as a mysteriousgenius representing some mysterious symbolic tradition.(This latter description is supposed to account forhis "love of spirals.")The reason that we could be sure of our hypothesis thatLeonardo's art was based upon his mastery of scientificprinciples (principles that have been rediscovered sometimeshundreds of years later) is found in his paintingsthemselves. Leonardo's art reflects more than mere painting;it is the creative method itself that is incorporated inhis paintings. His work reflects a masterful representationof rigor and human love, and herein is the kernel of thescientific method.Still another standpoint that allowed us to understandLeonardo was the location of his role in the republicancircles of Machiavelli. This was made possible by a study ofthe economic content of his notebooks, bearing in mindthat economic development depends upon the building oflarge infrastructural projects. 3 With this perspective, suddenly,all of his work, now scattered in different books,began to take a coherent shape: his technological innovations,his irrigation project, his military concerns, his researchin the power of motors and the design of engines.Leonardo's outlook was that of all great humanists fromPlato to Leibniz to Schiller.Such a person would naturally be a cultural optimist,would naturally look for a way to bring man into space andto conquer the underwater depths. A man like that wouldnormally look for the most universal principles, principlesderived from the postulate that man exists and owes hiscontinued existence to his own power to master the lawsthat govern his physical environment.Such a person would not be satisfied with mere logic ortechnique, but would be satisfied only when he could bringreal existence and its evolution to the fore. Technical developmentwould be seen as indispensable for human existence,but such improvement could come only from theapplication of universal principles, not techniques. Themotivation for his work would not be careerist but derivedfrom Christian love, the upgrading of his fellow men by acombination of cultural and technological progress.This is the Leonardo who was working and struggling tomake new advances, to find new means of development—enjoying it all with the joy of a pure infant, making mistakes,constantly seeking new approaches, redrawing the sameplan many times until it was sufficiently rigorous to meethis own standards, so that he was satisfied with the answer.It is this human being who most contributed to our culturaladvancement into the industrial age. It is this Leonardowhom we wish to reinstall in his rightful place. Readersshould look anew at his published drawings, this time gettinginto Leonardo's mind and seeing what he was seeingand thinking, enjoying science as only the cultural optimistwho is a creative being can. The historical Leonardo hasalready been presented in other published accounts. 3 Herewe wish to focus upon how his method, applied to fluiddynamics, not only is still valid but also is the only way thatwe can understand the real fluids that make up 99.99 percentof the universe.The present debate in plasma physics, in meteorology,and in astrophysics, even if technically detailed, is preciselythe same debate that Leonardo faced. Can we accountcausally for the evolution of new singularities? Are singularitiesa physical reality? Does their existence have implicationsfor the way in which the universe as a whole isorganized?Leonardo looked at the formation of turbulence and singularitiesas essential and causal. Vortices would reflect notsimple chaotic disorder but something more complex andordered. He recognized that rotation is a general propertyof the universe. Yet today, this seemingly simple issue isholding back breakthroughs in modern physics. Why? Becausethe issue is not a simple technical question. The samekind of debate that is going on today occurred betweenPlato and Aristotle, between Leibniz and Newton, betweenthe German-Italian school of hydrodynamics linked toBernhard Riemann and Ludwig Prandtl and the Englishschool of Rayleigh-Kelvin-Lamb. In each case, the oppositiondenied the real existence of shock waves and othersingularities. 4 In fact, it is the outcome of the fight betweenthese two outlooks that has determined progress or regressionin scientific thinking.FUSION January-February 1986 15
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