Technikatörténeti szemle 13. (1982)

TANULMÁNYOK - Szabadváry Ferenc: Leonardo da Vinci: Efficiency Problems of Technological Inventions

nology in Budapest. The inventor, a humble monk, was happy to find that the idea he had conceived was fully justified by practice. His desire of knowledge being satisfied, he no longer troubled about his invention and never had a thought about the potentials of its industrial utilization. Siemens came to the same idea independently of Jedlik, tested it in practice and — in contrast to Jedlik — carried on, presenting humanity with the electric current for everyday use. Obviously, it is Siemens who is rightfully recognized as the inventor of the electromagnetic generator, since it is an essential part of the inventor's activity to perceive the practical importance of his invention. Another example: Polsunov constructed a steam engine earlier than Watt. He recognized its significance and set one single engine into operation. No second engine followed, however, whereas Watt's engines were manufactured by the thousands. The reason: at that time Russia had no industry which would have needed steam engines, in contrast to England where the demand was great. This example demonstrates that it is insufficient to recognize the importance of one's invention: one must invent there and then, where and when it can be utilized, this being the precondition of success for the novel concept. None the less, honour is due to the man who at least makes an attempt to carry his invention through to the stage of practical application, but can't succeed due to adverse conditions. Leonardo made hundreds of exquisite drawings and descriptions of technological constructions. Many of these constructions didn't exist in reality at the time. They were realized later by some other man who didn't, however, rely on Leonardo's drawings, these drawings being unknown until the end of the 18th century, but developed his own original idea. Leonardo, the prophet of technology who predicted technological development — this is a phrase frequently met, and it is justifiable to say so. However, lots and lots of such prophets have existed. There's Icarus foresaw flying. Icarus, of course, is just a mythological figure. Roger Bacon, an English monk, did, however live in fact in the 13th century. This is what he wrote: „Machines can be built to substitute oarsmen, so that the largest ships will be capable of sailing on rivers and seas with one single man on board. Cars can be built that aren't pulled by animals and achieve incredible speed. Flying machines can also be built. One man in the centre is only needed to operate a mechanism that will artifically bring wings into motion. Devices can be constructed allowing man to move in the sea and even to descend to its profoundest depths... Bridges without piers, almost unlimited in length, can be built to span rivers ...". Bacon even claims that some of these things were known in antiquity! Nobody would, of course, insist that Bacon was the inventor of the airplane and the submarine boat, or even that he predicted them. His writings are pure imagination. Leonardo, in a more exact manner, also made drawings of things that didn't exist at the time, for instance, mirror-polishing machines, cropping machines, carding machines, excavators, floating excavators, superposed road crossings and so on ... Let us, however, remember what lovely drawings appear nowadays in magazines and even in popular scientific journals, depicting the cities of the future, the roads of the future, space stations and commercial spaceships. These drawings are usually very vivid and appear to be easily realizable in practice. Thus, there are thousands and thousands of „prophets of the technological future" living among us, since it's absolutely certain that much of what is just imagination at present will, at some time, become reality. In a period like ours, characterized by immense, breath-taking discoveries and inventions like nuclear