Leonardo Da Vinci
Dakota
Professor Hall
ENGL 2010
22 January 2013
Be Like da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci brought forth information that has helped shape the way that we think today. Art, science, and philosophy have been ever influenced by the “genius.” The contributions from him are endless.
Leonardo was the first that looked into and documented neurophysiology. He gave us reasons backed up by evidence as to how the brain processes many of its sensory information. Leonardo started looking at anatomy as early as 1487. His drawings were very detailed, and he even showed the center of gravity on the head and scaled the head to the correct size. Da Vinci recorded the function of each region of the brain. “‘The soul seems to reside in the judgment, and the judgment would seem to be seated in that part where all the senses meet; and this is called the senso commune;” Leonardo wrote. He was thinking so far ahead and explaining things in such a radical way that he was very advanced for his time and the sciences. Da Vinci was very involved with studying the eye and how light affects what we see. He filled entire notebooks with the study of and the anatomy of the eye. The eyes see outwards in a pyramid like structure with the point on your eye. This is the phenomenon that makes it easier to see closer objects rather than far ones. Our eyes capture an image, transmit it along nerves, and then it reaches our brain where it is processed and placed in the memory. It seems that Leonardo was very fascinated by the eye and how they both work with the brain. This could be because he was an artist and light affects how we will see a picture. Leonardo also was tapping into how the spinal cord and column worked. He was the first to dissect a frog and he noted that as soon as the spinal cord was cut, the frog would die. He had previously cut off their heads or extracted their organs, and the frog would still live. This informed him that the spinal cord is what allows us to move and live. He
Professor Hall
ENGL 2010
22 January 2013
Be Like da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci brought forth information that has helped shape the way that we think today. Art, science, and philosophy have been ever influenced by the “genius.” The contributions from him are endless.
Leonardo was the first that looked into and documented neurophysiology. He gave us reasons backed up by evidence as to how the brain processes many of its sensory information. Leonardo started looking at anatomy as early as 1487. His drawings were very detailed, and he even showed the center of gravity on the head and scaled the head to the correct size. Da Vinci recorded the function of each region of the brain. “‘The soul seems to reside in the judgment, and the judgment would seem to be seated in that part where all the senses meet; and this is called the senso commune;” Leonardo wrote. He was thinking so far ahead and explaining things in such a radical way that he was very advanced for his time and the sciences. Da Vinci was very involved with studying the eye and how light affects what we see. He filled entire notebooks with the study of and the anatomy of the eye. The eyes see outwards in a pyramid like structure with the point on your eye. This is the phenomenon that makes it easier to see closer objects rather than far ones. Our eyes capture an image, transmit it along nerves, and then it reaches our brain where it is processed and placed in the memory. It seems that Leonardo was very fascinated by the eye and how they both work with the brain. This could be because he was an artist and light affects how we will see a picture. Leonardo also was tapping into how the spinal cord and column worked. He was the first to dissect a frog and he noted that as soon as the spinal cord was cut, the frog would die. He had previously cut off their heads or extracted their organs, and the frog would still live. This informed him that the spinal cord is what allows us to move and live. He