Technikatörténeti szemle 13. (1982)

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

FERENC SZABADVÁRY* LEONARDO DA VINCI: EFFICIENCY PROBLEMS OF TECHNOLOGICAL INVENTIONS Never has so much been written about sculptures and paintings that have never been accomplished as about those of Leonardo da Vinci, never have sentences from books never written been cited as often as those of Leonardo da Vinci. Never have inventions never put into practice, machines never operated and tested been appreciated and praisedas highly as those of Leonardo da Vinci. Certainly, one needs good biographers to become a historic personality. This was known already to the sovereigns of antiquity and the middle ages, and that was the reason why they hired historians to glorify them."Leonardo was lucky to find excellent biographers after his death and up to the present: the books written about him would fill a smaller library. Most of the authors comment his merits, and tones of criticism occur but rarely. I have no competence to judge Leonardo the artist. I am, however, qualified to express my opinion on Leonardo the engineer, the inventor. According to numerous authors he was one of the greatest engineers, and he has been described over and over again as the inventor of many machines and devices. Who, however, should be called inventor? The man who has grand ideas which are never realized, who sketches machines — with vivid imagination and doubtlessly with great talent — which he never puts into prectice, and in most cases doesn't even attempt to do so? Or is it the man who accomplishes something, whose invention stands the test in practice, bringing benefit to society and possibly to the inventor too? In my opinion, it is only the latter who may rightly be called inventor. Every country, every nation claims to have inventors and discoverers who invented or discovered something earlier than some other man to whom history attributes the invention. History, however, will always credit that man with the invention who not only perceived it, but carries it through and introduces it into prectice. Hardly can ever be conceived anything novel that had not been thought of earlier by someone else who occasionally even happened to execute the idea, but didn't recognize the importance, the usefulness of his invention. There is no doubt that Amos Jedlik invented the principle of the electromagnetic generator earlier than Siemens. He also constructed a machine which can actually be operated up to the present. It is on show, together with a description written with Jedlik's own hand, in the Museum of Science and Tech* National Museum for Science and Technology H—

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