Leonardo Da Vinci's Bad Ideas

Explore the fascinating genius and human flaws of Leonardo da Vinci! From his ingenious flying machines to his impractical diving suits, discover Da Vinci's lesser-known, unsuccessful inventions. Join us on this captivating journey!

[stuartrobinson]

Terry pratchett had the best description of da Vinci with the character Leonard of quirm. Who is constantly unconsciously doodling terrible functional world changing machines in the margins of books without really being conscious of what he had created

[alm]

7:28 To quote Fry and professor Farnsworth in Futurama:

Fry: "Wow, could that thing really fly!?"

Farnsworth: "Of course not, that thing is as aerodynamic as a sofa!"

[evanr.]

In his biography of Leonardo, Walter Isaacson discusses that Leonardo earned most of his income by staging stage plays. Some historians theorize the many of Leonardo's inventions were designs for stage props. Several of the flying machines look like that could be plausible.

Of course that's just a theory. But I think it is an interesting one.

[THE-X-Force]

That "digital distortion" effect is annoying af .. bzzzzt!

[NathanaelNewton]

The glitch sound effect volume is what happens when the editor doesn't wear headphones while editing 😮

[ZOB]

Feels weird to hear Simon talk about Da Vinci without telling a story about how thought it was Da Vin-see for the longest time

[charleschristianson]

If he had developed a working diving suit, people would've figured out a use for it. To call it a "bad idea" because it didn't make it past the red tape is simply wrong.

[QwertiusMaximus]

He's one Donatello short of Ninja Turtles.

[allanshpeley]

They should have titled this, "Leonardo Da Vinci's Good Ideas, Most of Which Worked With Some Fine Tuning".

[vernonzehr]

I hate to be "that guy" but seriously, does anyone like those ridiculous annoying, and distracting transitions? They are so annoying it breaks the flow and presentation of the narrative. It adds ZERO, NADA, NOTHING to the content or presentation quality. Other than the transitions the content on this channel is always fantastic.

[crichtonbruce]

No use for a functional diving suit in the 1500s. Hmm... The primary use for the first successful diving suits was salvage operations. As such, if Leonardo's design worked, it would have found some happy customers.

[davidliskey]

There was a show on discovery channel where they built some of his designs, including that tank, pretty cool, most worked, they fixed flaws in some designs and made them work. Really good show

[paulheinrich]

Wow. No advertisements. This is a first in forever. Thx, Simon.

[greenredblue]

The most important thing I learned from this is that even da Vinci felt the need to pad his resume.

[ChickenMan]

Even bad ideas and total failures have a positive lesson, "don't do that again".

[megaflux]

the diving suit would have worked well for looting the ships sunk by a cannon ball.

[andyaskew]

I think the point is that Da Vinci was able to produce concepts so far ahead of their time that the technology necessary to produce them had not even been invented yet. I don't see any of this as a failure.

[ThorParker]

4:20 I get it!!! It was to destroy ships carrying gold and then being able to bring up their valuable resources, for which the army would benefit greatly through reinvesting the income into warfare, damaging the economy of the opposition, or even potentially recovering weapons for reuse.

[vaibanez]

IMO, being even that close to a working flight apparatus in 1480 is worth praise, even if his exact models wouldn't have worked without changes and modifications.

[Jabbadoor]

Just some feedback from 1 random viewer.
I stumbled over the channel a couple of weeks ago, and ended up bingewatching also most every video dating back 1½ year or so. :-)
In other words; I really like your content.

However, lately you've started using some sort of "breaking up effect", And I can't say why, but it really gets under my skin.
To the point where I don't really want to keep watching, because all i'm thinking about, is preparing myself for the next time it comes.

It's like nails at a charkboard. 😞