Da Vinci Bridge Built

cluening writes: "A bridge designed about 500 years ago by Leonardo Da Vinci has finally been built. It's mighty cool that something envisioned so long ago has actually been created with relatively little trouble." See also the project's home page.

Comments

Does it Work?

[alnapp]

IIRC

Some gorup finally built his bird man contraption and it, dissapointingly, failed.

Re:Does it Work?

[HCase]

Ornithopter... the bird contraption was an ornithopter

Re:Does it Work?

[alnapp]

Thanks for that from dictionary corner ;-)

As an afterthought, I hope it does work seeing as they've built the bugger

Re:Does it Work?

[grammar nazi]

Ornithopter?

Was this a DaVinci work?
Well I'll be tickled! I thought it was a 0/2 flying artifact with a 1-colorless mana casting cost!

Wow.

Re:Does it Work?

[TheMMaster]

You are partially right, the ornithopter from the ice age on was free (eg 0 colorless mana)

THE most irritating creatures when used with giant groath or something

Re:Does it Work?

[NeoSkandranon]

I'm glad i wasn't hte only one that thought of that =)

No, its just a scale replica.

[Shivetya]

Sorry, it isn't his 1500 footer, but merely a scaled down version. Does it anwser the question about whether or not his original could be built? No, not of stone at least. The stone one cannot be used for modern traffic.

Using todays technologies and materials we could easily do it, but the egos of states and engineers would get in the way.

Re:No, its just a scale replica.

[isa-kuruption]

Read the article. It's a foot bridge (for walking) and is made of wood.

only took 500 years, eh?

[nukey56]

after this long, i'm assuming that DaVinci's patent on his bridge has expired. maybe it would be a boost for the tech industry if they all baked bread, waiting for patents to expire before they make the real dough.

Safety and $$$

[SplendidIsolatn]

I'm curious as to how the costs of this bridge would compare with a non-Da Vincian design. Aside from the pleasurable looks, does this bridge provide any other functionality such as safety in unpleasant conditions?

That being said, if there was another added benefit (strength, cost) would it be possible to create that bridge for automobiles? If anyone who knows more about architecture than I do has an answer, I'd like to know.

Re:Safety and $$$

[lohen]

Personally, I quite like the idea of a highly engineered, aesthetically pleasing footbridge. It's good to get away from the car (this from a man who cycles 3.5 hours a week just to get to lectures, rehearsals etc). The beauty of such a design is in the concept, and the realisation of such a concept seems well-suited for non-motorised forms of transport. Cars would probably just get it dirty anyway ;)

Re:Safety and $$$

[DavidBrown]

IANAE - Dammit, Jim, I'm a lawyer, not an engineer.

Despite that, I did get a little bit of training in engineering in College. I'd have to guess that the design probably isn't ideal, because Leonardo did not have the benefit of differential equations, modern material science, etc. Engineering was by trial and error back in the day.

But, that bridge sure looks good, and I'd be we could build the bridge today, out of steel and concrete, across the Bosporus. That would be really cool, although the Turks would have to be willing to throw the extra money around.

P.S.: Leonardo, your Workshop rules. Now I can upgrade my Civ III Spearsmen to Riflemen for only 60 gold a pop! Sweet!!

Overbudget

[Ratbert42]

"The laminated timber version, to be built by the firm best known for engineering the innovative "Viking Ship" skating arena for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway, Moelven Laminated Group, is estimated to cost a modest $466,000"

Leonardo envisioned the bridge in stone. When that proved too expensive, the Norwegians settled for a graceful wooden version for $1.36 million.

A 200% cost overrun. Still, it's cheaper than most dot-coms furniture bill.

Re:Overbudget

[Anonymous Coward]

Read it again. It says the _wood_ could be built at that price. Theres more to it than the mere structure

Re:Overbudget

[Waffle Iron]

A 200% cost overrun.

My boss would consider that normal. OTOH, the 500 year schedule slip is a tad much even by software development standards.

Celebrating a Contender

[JJ]

IMHO, celebrating the ideas of a contender for "World's Smartest Human, Ever" is worth whatever this bridge cost. Besides, it looks like a really cool bridge.

Re:Celebrating a Contender

[MrBlack]

Right on - Around the world I've seen WAY more money wasted on designs by people who were _NOT_ contenders for "World's Smartest Human, Ever", I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder etc etc but a lot of stuff I've seen cost millions and was going to look so silly and out of date in a couple of years (if not already). I think this bridge is cool. I just wish I was lucky enought for the requirements for something I designed not to change week to week, let alone for 500 years. Bridge designers get all the breaks.

It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[drxyzzy]

Calling him "da Vinci" for short is like saying Smoky Bear's middle name is "the".

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we all know that from our classic literature lectures. But do you really expect this "michael" to type as well as the fabled lit. major cMdRTACO ? And plea'se watc't th'e ap'hostropees.

Yours,

Erno Paasilinna

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[kazzuya]

"da Vinci" is the last name. He's known as Leonardo because he signed as Leonardo, but I don't think "da Vinci" sounds funny.

bau

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[SEWilco]

Dat is da bridge da Vinci dasigned.

(Yes, I do know what da means)

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[TomV]

"da Vinci" is the last name. He's known as Leonardo because he signed as Leonardo

Not quite. Remember that Leonardo was born in 1452, well before modern European naming conventions developed. His full name of 'Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci' means "Leonardo, sired by Piero, from Vinci".

So whilst "da Vinci" is the last chunk of his name, referring to this bridge as the work of "da Vinci" effectively means attributing it to "some bloke from Vinci". If he'd been born 400 years later, "da Vinci" would have been reasonably described as a surname, as it is, it stands as a reasonably useful way of referring to the man, but then so does 'Leonardo', which, as Kazzuya points out, has the benefit of being how the artist himself signed his work (let's not get into the 350 different ways Wm Sheakspeer spelled his name...)

TomV

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually he has a point, the naming convention does not translate into English properly. I know many people born in Spanish speaking countries who
are named something like this made up example:
Maria de Luz Sanchez Rivera. Many forms only allow 3 names, so they would typically want to
choose Maria Luz Sanchez, but the U.S. govt. in its infinite wisdom tends to choose the auxilliary word, 'de' so they wind up being Maria de Sanchez.
From their point of view, this is a very strange
formulation of their name.

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[Anonymous Coward]

To put it simpler, its like calling "Robin of Locksly", "Of Locksly".

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[mpe]

Actually he has a point, the naming convention does not translate into English properly.

Not quite it will translate perfectly, though convention is that the only translation applicable to proper nouns is where there are incompatable alphabets involved.
Where problems arise is officialdom assuming that all names conform to a personal name/family name format (with an optional "auxillary" name.) When there are plenty of people who's names simply do not follow this format.

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[cluening]

Well, I can happily say that that is not the original title I put on the story when I submitted it...

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[spaceyhackerlady]

Leonardo actually signed most of his stuff as Io, Leonardo ("I, Leonardo").

Until relatively recently, most people were known as So-and-So from Some-Place, possibly with the addition of Son or Daughter of Somebody. There just wasn't enough travel or communication to make any finer-granularity naming scheme necessary.

To this day Russians use the So-and-so, Son/Daughter of Somebody form, which is the usual adult form of address. Icelanders form names like this too. The Celtic patronymics Mc/Mac are well known.

Examples: Mikhail Sergeyevich ("son of Sergei") Gorbachev, Bjork Gudmundsdottir.

In France having la particule "de" in one's name is positively fashionable. People search family trees to find any justification for using it. They may even invent justification: one of Napoleon's colleagues changed his name from Demorny to de Morny.

All we have in Canada is a popular TV show called Da Vinci's Inquest.

...laura of Vancouver, daughter of Dennis

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[ahde]

If he'd been born 400 years earlier, you might have been right, but as it was, his family name was and had been da Vinci for a while (and all his neighbors didn't have the same surname, and he didn't come from Vinci)

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[rgarcia]

Actually, in Latin America it is a common custom for the woman to take the mans last name with the possesive "de" (of), so if Juan Smits marries Maria Sanchez, she becomes Maria de Smits.
Its little outdated, but still used.
Just a little FYI.

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[nettdata]

Silly me... I thought Leonardo was a mutated turtle that beat the crap out of people.

Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo".

[TomV]

... and he didn't come from Vinci

OK, so strictly, village-wise, he was born in Anchiano, a full 3 km from the town of Vinci, on April 15 1452, but he was baptised in the chapel of Vinci, and his family moved there when Leonardo was five. His father was a public official in Vinci, Vinci was the centre of the parish and the local administrative centre. Leonardo lived there until he was 14 (very much adult in those days) when he moved to Firenze (Florence). Trust me, I'm a librarian!

TomV

use/improve the 'bridges' already built

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how we've been given all form of tools to bridge the communications/commerce gap, but continue to be led around like sheeples on some old dusty diseased dirt trail supplied by the same old felonious greed/fear mongers.

No wonder we're camping in ScaredCity?tmp?.

Have you seen these face scans, etc..., of the REAL .commIEs?

Nordmenn elsker bruer

[imrdkl]

The Norwegians really like their bridges. And tunnels. They are masters of tunnel building. And one of the first things I noticed when driving cross-country here was the plethora of bridge designs. They seem to have tried a little of everything, its pretty cool to see.

Hats off to the norwegians for cool engineering and no fear of new (and old) designs.

Now, if someone could tell me please, when do they close the fjords at night?

Re:Nordmenn elsker bruer

[tomknight]

Now, if someone could tell me please, when do they close the fjords at night?

Because otherwise you'll be eaten by a grue.

Tom.

Re:Nordmenn elsker bruer

[Anonymous Coward]

The Norwegians really like their bridges.

Does that mean all the trolls are from Norway?

Another cool old bridge

[e4]

The PBS show NOVA did a program about engineers trying to recreate the famous Rainbow Bridge shown in this this 900-year-old painting.

It is widely believed that the bridge actually existed in China centuries ago, but it's actual design was a bit of a mystery. Using the famous painting as a guide, they were able to come up with a feasable design using wood and ropes. They eventually built a full sized bridge in a Chinese village. The bridge was remarkably strong for a millenium-old design.

NOVA has to be one of the coolest shows around...

Re:Another cool old bridge

[mrsmalkav]

Hey neat! They have a bridge that looks just like that in the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco! Except that one there is a *lot* steeper. Don't think it was constructed in the same manner though. I didn't take pictures, and I don't remember the support beams underneath like in the pictures of the Chinese bridge.

Re:Another cool old bridge

[TheMidget]

And what about the concrete steps leading to it? Why, oh why do they have to spoil those ancient designs by adding modern materials to it? Couldn't they just have made those steps out of wood too?

Re:Another cool old bridge

[joshamania]

Actually, the steps are probably more than just steps, but anchors to support the compression of the arch of the bridge.

Secrets of Lost Empires on Nova rocks!

Da Vinci bicycle

[John Harrison]

For the final project of my freshman year Civ class we built a da Vinci bicycle out of wood. Acutally we built it twice since the janitors from the dorm thought the first one which had only to be assembled to be complete was junk so they threw it out. The second one was ridable and could be pedaled but was hard to turn.

I even rode it to class a few times. Nothing attracts attention like riding your extremely loud wooden bicycle to class.

We ended up not having a place to store for the summer it so we simply locked it to a bike rack and left it as art. It lasted as art for several months before being removed.

Re:Da Vinci bicycle

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the chicks were hanging on you and your wooden bike...

Re:Da Vinci bicycle

[morcheeba]

This was the best picture of DaVinci's bike that I could find on the net. (Also try here) It's only got one triangle instead of the two that the modern bike has, so it looks a bit stressful on the parts. I'd love to see more; especially the steering (or lack of steering?) mechanism.

Re:Da Vinci bicycle

[John Harrison]

Ours had no triangles and now way to turn the front wheel. I managed to steer by popping wheelies and jerking the wheel to one side repeatedly. We used 2x4s for the frame and plywood wheels with 1 inch dowels for axles. The seat was mounted to a 2x4 that came up just in front of the rear wheel. The handle bar was mounted to 2x4s that were attached at the same point as the front axel. We cheated and used a modern bike chain and chainrings for the drivetrain. Now I wish we had used a rope with wooden beads on it or something a bit more creative. There are pictures of our project, but none on the net. :(

Overall it was pretty sturdy, but I only rode it for a few days. I didn't dare give it heavy use prior to having the project graded. Then I had to leave campus a few days after it was turned in. It was heavy and not very comfortable to ride but really the lack of steering was the only real deficiency. We couldn't see from the drawing how it would have been steerable. Perhaps with an axle in the frame mounted behind the front wheel. Maybe someday I'll build it right.

Re:Da Vinci bicycle

[Cy Guy]

Actually there is conjecture that bicycle was not a DaVinci sketch, instead being the work of one of his students, or even potentially a hoax, though other scholars have dismissed those claims arguing that the drawing is almost certainly a pupil's sketch of a Leonardo original. (Note the first of these links has a great picture of both the sketch and of a re-creation of what the bike might have looked like.)

Everything old is new again.

[dinotrac]

I know it's a cliche, but it sure is nice to see it applied to something other than the return of bell-bottoms, hip-huggers or platform shoes.

Genius if forever.

Fashion can make a day seem forever.

More Info

[squaretorus]

More info HERE.

This bridge doesnt look too good in the photos to date, anyone got links to more detailed ones?

Maybe not the vidication everybody thinks it is

[wowbagger]

This may not be the vindication everybody thinks it is.

First, the actual bridge is much smaller than the bridge that DaVinci envisioned. When you scale things down, they get stronger due to the cube/square law (strength varies as the square of size, mass as the cube - halving the size of an object reduces strength to a quarter, but reduces mass (and thus needed strength) to an eighth).

Second, the actual bridge is using laminated lumber, rather than the stone DaVinci specified. Wood is a very strong substance, and will flex rather than crumble like stone.

The project page is /.'ed, so I cannot see if they factored these into the design, and I didn't see the Nova special. Does anybody know if they took these factors into account?

Re:Maybe not the vidication everybody thinks it is

[McD!ck]

Very true! Most of Da Vinci's inventions would and have failed due to such issues relating to materials, but that is if we are looking from a stictly engineering standpoint.

For me DaVinci's inventions are not going to be "better" than what we invented in the last few hundred years. He did however show incredible creativity. IMHO (which isn't much when I am not talking about biology or C/C++ programming ) its not the fact that it is "better" than current, its the fact that it was thought of hundreds of years before it was possible to complete.

Bridges schmidges!

[billybob2001]

If Leo was so smart, how come he never designed a router? ;)

-how about a hub then? Or was that covered by the invention of the wheel?

Re:Bridges schmidges!

[thogard]

But a differential is just a mechanical router and he designed that.

IBM built some very cool models of his other works but they are now here (in English)

Mirror of project page

[Anonymous Coward]

Google cache of project home page:


http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:kyvmjWinItU :w ww.vebjorn-sand.com/thebridge.htm+&hl=en&lr=lang_e n

Re:No, its just a scale replica - with bandaids on

[victim]

Yes, not only is it 1/3 the length and made out of a material unavailable to DaVinci, but it doesn't look to be supporting itself well.

Notice in the picture the four T shaped supports holding up the spans outside the bows. Even with these supports the near span is visibly sagging. In DaVinci's design that area was to be filled with masonry, I hope they do something other than leave those inappropriate supports in place.

And while I suppose the handrails are required by local building codes, they do spoil the entire effect. All those little vertical lines ruin the effect the clean span. Of course, a series of fatal accidents involving skateboarders and bicyclists falling onto the highway below would probably also spoil the bridge's reputation...

(And no, I have no idea how to make a visually appropriate hand rail. I'm not an architect, just a critic. :-)

Wibbly Wobbly Bridge

[The Real Andrew]

This is what they should have built over the Thames River in London rather than that awful swaying Millenium Bridge. I am still not sure if that has been reopened to the public yet. What a waste of money and sad comment on the "New Millenium" that was.

Andrew

Re:Wibbly Wobbly Bridge

[JimPooley]

As far as I know the stupid Millennium Bridge is still closed. It's liable to end up costing twice as much as was originally spent just to fix the damn thing. Total waste of taxpayers' money.
Engineers 1, Architects 0

there's a sucker born every few centuries

[abde]

"I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you"

-- Da Vinci, 1502 AD

"No Thanks"

-- Sultan Bajazet II, 1502 AD

"Where do I sign?"

-- Norwegian Highway Department, 2001 AD

Reminds me ...

[Krilomir]

...of this really cool game where you build bridges. It's in full 3D with a complex physics engine. I had a lot of fun with this game yesterday :)

Assembly Techiques

[AndroidCat]

The arches are built in glued pine, a process used in many of the stunning venues at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. The railing is in stainless steel and teak.

What I want to know is did they use those hex keys to assemble it, and can I get one in Ikea?

Re:Assembly Techiques

[diverguy]

Ikea is a Swedish company, not Norwegian.

Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[Anton Anatopopov]

Leonardo DaVinci invented many other things apart from bridges. He was one of the first anatomists to draw pictures of the insides of human bodies. He invented the helicopter. He was truly the canonical 'renaissance man'.

While his designs may not be right for the modern world, the way he dabbled in every form of science was amazing. If only more scientists could see beyond the tunnel-vision of their specialism to get a grasp of the 'big picture' the way Leonardo did.

Modern scientists such as Professor Stephen Hawking are truly geniusses, but they lack the all round scientific insight to be productive. How many bridges have been built by theoretical physicists ? ;-)

I think the problem is the education system which forces us by the 'major' system to specialise rather than follow our interests. This has to change as we move forward into the 21st century.

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[guidobot]

I don't think that's a fair way of looking at it. Geniuses come and go at random, but I don't think they're created by the education system or can be forced into a pigeonhole so easily. Its up to the individual to find their own direction. Take Richard Feynman, for example, a nobel prize winning theoretical physicist who helped build the atomic bomb, invented the concept of the quantum computer, figured out why the Challenger blew up, and even composed a bongo drum ballet. My old research advisor, Herb Simon, was a nobel prize winner in economics and also won a Turing Award for his hand in a substantial chunk of the beginnings of Artificial Intelligence.

On the other hand, if we used our education system to encourage everyone to do everything, I think we'd have a lot of non-genius folks who would just suck at lots of things. We're probably better off just letting the geniuses figure out that they're destined for bigger & better things.

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[Tenebrious1]

...see beyond the tunnel-vision of their specialism to get a grasp of the 'big picture'

The problem is, the "big picture" doesn't pay. That type of science is called "blue-sky" research, and there aren't that many companies (besides the US Gov, IBM, GE) that are willing or can afford to maintain such research groups. Unless you specialize, you don't get funding. A lot of researchers would love to be generalists, dabbling in everything and trying to come up with something new. However, unless you pick a specialty, you don't get funding from the school. You don't get research grants. You can't pay off your student loans. So you specialize.

...He invented the helicopter.

No, he designed a non-working machine that sorta looks like a helicopter. He also designed a non-working device that looks like a parachute but would kill the user. I think one of the criteria for an "invention" is that it works. I don't think you can get a US Patent on a non-working device.

...How many bridges have been built by theoretical physicists ?

Every Single One. The designers might not have had a nice shiny plaque on the door that said "theoretical physicist", but the Roman Aquaducts weren't designed by peasants throwing rocks around hoping they would stay together. Even the fallen tree over the stream. Some bright individual had been using deadfalls to cross streams, and thought to himself - "hey, I could cut down a tree and lay it across *myself* instead of having to hike all the way up here". He was a theoretical physicists. So was DaVinci for that matter, although he rarely put theory into practice. Theoretical and physicist are relative terms remember depending on what the general pool of knowledge was in that time period.

...forces us... to specialise rather than follow our interests

Nothing forces you to specialize into something you don't like. You choose your major. You choose the topic for your thesis. You choose which research grants to apply for. You choose which to accept.

I chose not to pursue a degree in theoretical mathematics. I choose to instead be a dirt poor novelist struggling to pay my massive school loans working as a helpdesk tech. It was my choice to leave the system. Everyone has that choice.

Not to say the school system doesn't have problems and couldn't use a LOT of reform at the primary and secondary levels. That I don't have an answer for.

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[Anonymous Coward]

He invented the helicopter.

Actually, no. The thing Da Vinci sketched was some wooden frame with a propeller-like spiral on top. This could never fly. A helicopter works by the principle of a swashplate and levers for fully variable blade pitch which allows for separate cyclic and collective control of the blade pitch (so a blade can create a different amount of lift at each point of its rotation). And he didn't take into account that the rotor would create a rotational force in the opposite direction (simple principle of actio - reactio).

Da Vinci was a bright guy, but he didn't invent everything. Most of the stuff he designed wasn't even built.

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[jgerman]

That's more than a little unfair. As time goes on fields increase in depth requiring more time to become proficient in and not allowing those who are interested in multiple fields to spread there studies out across fields. Not to deny Leonardo his genius, but it was much, much easier for him to dabble in a wide variety of fields than it would be for someone today. It took less effort for him to become an expert in a subject, especially when it was a subject that little was known about.

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[david duncan scott]

. Some bright individual had been using deadfalls to cross streams, and thought to himself - "hey, I could cut down a tree and lay it across *myself* instead of having to hike all the way up here". He was a theoretical physicists.

No, he was an Engineer, and probably proud of it.

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[ahde]

what do you mean, steven hawking isn't productive? He's put out 3 albums . Not to shabby for a guy with his physical challenges.

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[ahde]

why does slashdot fuck up URL's?

mchawking.com

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[mrsmalkav]

well, theoretically it works like this: when using html, if you just say href="domain.com" or href="file.html" it will look for that file within the current directory (in this case "slashdot.org/"). that means that it's now looking for "slashdot.org/domain.com". if you would say: "http://domain.com", the link would work. slashdot isn't fucking up url's. it's behaving correctly.

Re:Leonardo's methods are the way forward

[Tenebrious1]

Ogg: Hey Ugg, have you seen Trogg lately?

Ugg: No, ever since he put that log across the stream he's been all "holier than thou" to the rest of us.

Ogg: Damn engineers. When will they learn to leave well enough alone? If some supernatural being we haven't gotten around to naming yet wanted us to use trees to cross streams, he would have given us something to cut down those trees.

Ugg: Did you see what Trogg used to chop down the tree? He didn't chew it like the rest of us, he used a rock tied to a stick! I hear he's also playing with fire too. Calls it cooking. Says it will revolutionalize eating. I'm telling you Ogg, there's something wrong with that kid.

Ogg: {shakes head}

read the post...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's clear he read the article. it is not clear that you read what he wrote.

you are as stupid at they come

Archimedes mirror

[G Neric]

the ancients built many marvelous things. Archimedes once built a giant mirror that would focus the sun on enemy ships and catch them afire.

could somebody build a scaled down version of Archmedes mirror and mirror this Leonardo bridge site so I can see the pictures? Use wood if you need to.

There is no truth to the rumor that Slashdot is the modern equivalent of the hemlock that Socrates drank.

Re:Archimedes mirror

[zeno_2]

I have built an archimedes mirror for you:

http://www.indigo.com/magnify/gphmgnfy/plastic-m ag nifying-glass.html

I coined the term magnifying glass as I built this wonderous machine, one that collects the rays of the sun and can focus them on a single point, causing fire.

Re:Archimedes mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

the images, why... they are beautiful! but so bright, they are so bright... aaaaaahhhhh! I can't see! they've burned me.... aaaahhhhh! curse you, Archimedes!

Re:Archimedes mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it amazing to think about the fact that someone actually sits and types these amazingly unfunny things.

The bridge looks abit... small.

[Ch_Omega]

I don't live very far from Aas/Norway, and had a chance to see the bridge a few weeks ago, and compared to da Vinci's original vision...ehhm... the bridge looks kinda small. :)

I have a mirror for the pictures

[AnotherBrian]

I made a comment yesterday about mirroring a very large file and I would like to reinterate it here with some extra stuff.

I was able to get the pictures off the website and I have put them in a .zip file and I am sharing them on WinMX. I also included this note along with the pictures.

Original story: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/01/135215
Pictures obtained from: http://www.vebjorn-sand.com/thebridge.htm
From: AnotherBrian

These files are probably copyrighted, I have made them avaible through other means in order to allow people who can not access the above web site due to the 'Slashdot Effect'. The files will be removed from my server 48 houres after the posting date of the artical above. Please do the same.

Find it by searching for: [SLASHDOT When I'm at my computer I will try to give this file 1st priority. It's hard (for me) to tell if a site will be /.'ed and if the pictures won't be avaible to others. I'm wondering what the rest of you think. It would be nice for the first posters to follow my example for sites that could go down quickly. How many of you would be willing to take some time to do the same? I think I have a nice template for setting up mirrors, (suggestions welcome).

Re:I have a mirror for the pictures

[karma corruptor]

Sig 2.0??

M$ XBOX lover!!!!

you should be commended for your...

What impresses me...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is just the curve of the arc. While I'm no expert on bridges, this looks extraordinarily progressive -- designs like that didn't reappear until the twentieth century.

Typical Leonardo.

In other news...

[jdub!]

In other news, several university students in Australia have created "the wheel" - designed before the separation of Gondwana by Urgor Groff, father of evolutionary humanity - as a graduation prank.

One onlooker praised its amazing "rolling" motion, saying that, "It's mighty cool that something envisioned so long ago has actually been created with relatively little trouble."

No animals or reputations were hurt during the wheel's construction.

reminds me of newtons bridge

[johnjones]

this was told to me on a punt (a boat) by a Cambridge student and they lie with the best of them(most spies came out of Cambridge) anyway the story goes

Newton designed/built a bridge over the river cam in Cambridge
It had no bolts and held together with gravity

Students could not work out how it worked
One night pissed they took it apart to find out

And they could not put it back now its held with bolts !

bridges are fun no matter how much tech people get them wrong witness the London millennium bridge
(it swayed so much you could not walk over it !)

regards

john jones

Re:reminds me of newtons bridge

[EnglishTim]

Sounds a bit Urban-Mythy...
http://www.quns.cam.ac.uk/Queens/Images/WinBridg.h tml

Re:reminds me of newtons bridge

[ketilf]

Did you actually believe that story? The urban-myth post aside, think about this for a second (or as long as you need). Do you think Newton went out and physically built the thing with his own hands? If not, there were surely workers around that could help rebuild it, and/or blueprints that could help.

Usually urban myths are at least _somewhat_ likely :)

Re:reminds me of newtons bridge

[johnjones]

cheers

they do lie then (-;

regards

john jones

Praise be to deferred intentions.

[T1girl]

The New York Times had this article A Crystal Beacon Atop a 20's Curiosity about a 42-story glass and steel structure -- inspired by the Crystal Palace built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London - that is going to be built atop Hearst Corporation's headquarters at 959 Eighth Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets in New York. The existing building, completed in 1928, was originally designed as the base of a taller structure.

Architectural critic Herbert Muschamp thinks it's a great project, something the New York skyline has been waiting for. "The possibilities for integrity are limited only by the mind's capacity to hold unity and complexity together. That is the capacity that distinguishes architecture from real estate," he says.

(Yes, I know that reading this entire article requires a dollar for a print copy or a free registration, but in my opinion it was well worth it.)

Sure, it's JUST like his design...

[dpbsmith]

...except for being seven times smaller and made out of different materials.

And the Boeing 777 is just like his airplane design too, except for being bigger and a different shape and made out of different materials.

Re:Sure, it's JUST like his design...

[DeltaStorm]

"And the Boeing 777 is just like his airplane design too, except for being bigger and a different shape and made out of different materials."

The scale of the bridge and the material that it is made of are not the issue. The bridge built by the Norwegians follows the same structural design as his bridge.

A year ago to the DAY

[CyberPhunk]

A year ago to the day I was in Istanbul, on my way to Italy. In Italy (Florence, to be exact) I had the luck to visit an exhibition of Da Vinci, complete with models. This bridge was the most impressive, both mechanically and historically, due to the fact that I crossed the Bosporus bridge over the Golden Horn just a few days back. The design was so far ahead of it's time (although at the time I thought it was just about ready for today for construction in ALUMINUM) I had wondered how many other Da Vinci projects would yet see the light of modern technology, far after Da Vinci had passed.

His ideas are bizarre at best. Yet we already have the Helicopter. We now also have his Bridge. And some people think he was the father of photography. I have seen his paintings, his sketches, and models of his projects. They never cease to amaze me.

Perhaps he was a genius. Perhaps he was a lunatic. Either way, I wish someday I could have the insight that he had, and be as absolutely "crazy" as he was.

More pix can be found here:

[Big Nothing]

Dagbladet 1
Dagbladet 2
Aftenposten 1 - english text with a nice pic.
Aftenposten 2 picture special.

Pages also include some text for those of us who can read Nowegian.

about damn time...

[karma corruptor]

question is:

"Did they build it out of toothpicks, as intended by most grade school students?"

answer is:

"That was only you, dork!"

It is a silly bridge...

[Lurkingrue]

Of course, after all:

It's just a model.

What was the original design length, really?

[FFtrDale]

At the project web site (http://www.vebjorn-sand.com/thebridge.htm), they list the original design length as 240 m, then as 1,1155 feet. When I went to grade school, 240m was about 790 feet. Does anybody know what the original length was?

Re:What was the original design length, really?

[FFtrDale]

OOPS - I should have written 240m and 1,155 feet as the lengths given in the project web site.

Re:ANN: new scientific journal

[Anonymous Coward]

Your so-called troll journal appears to be mostly concerned with crapflooding. Please go away and make Slashdot better for all of us.

Leonardo...

[cr0sh]

I see a few nay-sayers here, regarding the size and the materials used for this construction of da Vinci's bridge. It was originally meant to be of stone, and much bigger. Naysayers discuss that it is made of wood, and the inverse square law of size vs strength.

Now, I am not an engineer - and the arguments made are valid. But I do know a bit about Da Vinci - and the one thing he wasn't is incompetent.

If it was to be made of wood - he would have designed it that way - he knew about composite construction, from designing and building large (and not so large) torsion and bow-based siege engines for various sponsors. Many of his designs were meant to be done in wood, actually - others in stone, and still other in a combinations, which included metals and glass (optics, in that case).

He not only designed, but built large scale machines for boring long lengths of both wood and metal (for water pipes and cannons, respectively). These are large scale constructions and projects - I have no doubt that his full scale construction, as intended in stone, could be realized as he planned.

It is true that he saw farther than most men, and did lapse in areas that were more conjecture than real things that could work (his helicopter and ornithopter designs would likely not work - but they saw far, at the least - his parachute would have been fragile, and wouldn't have worked too well - but it has been built and tested - and it did work better than thought). But most of works are truely the "stuff of legends".

Here we are - 500 years after this man's death - still discussing, still trying out his ideas, ideals, and plans. I think of the sketched self-portrait of his as an old-man - as well as various other images I have seen of him. A powerful, muscular individual. This was a man intent on improving his mind, his body, and the world around him. It has been said that he was strong enough to bend an iron horseshoe with his bare hands - yet gentle enough to not harm an insect. He was supposedly a vegetarian. I have also heard he may have been homosexual.

None of this changes my image of the man - this man is a man to aspire to be like. A true individual who walked on the earth - and made it a better place through art, science, compassion, and dignity.

The Vinci Parachute - same story

[Kraft]

A year ago Adrian Nicholas followed the 500 year old Vinci design for a pyramid shaped parachute - built the thing, and used it. See the cool picture here

Re:No, its just a scale replica - with bandaids on

[hurst]

And while I suppose the handrails are required by local building codes

Around here, any footbridge that goes over a roadway is completely enclosed. If they didn't do that, at least once every year, some kids would drop bricks or something on cars as passed under. Some people were killed on the Autobahn like this a few years ago. Brick goes through windshield at 160kph...

A 1500' stone arch? That would be something

[Animats]

The small version is a beautiful work of art as a pedestrian bridge over a highway. The proposed 1500' stone version would have been far bigger than any stone bridge ever built. The record for stone arch single spans is about 250'. The longest steel arch is 1700'.

It's probably possible to build such a monster, but the falsework needed to hold up all that granite during construction would in itself be a huge bridge. Steel bridges are usually self-supporting while under construction, but that doesn't work for stone, which has zilch tensile strength. It would probably take more work building the temporary structures to hold up all that stone than to build a bridge som other way.

A derivative already exists

[Anonymous Coward]

The Michigan Department of Transportation has been building these things for years. Laid-up wooden arch beams, held up by surrounding bedrock.

I just travelled over one in Eagle River, MI. It was erected ten years ago, they go up cheap and fast, and they are beautiful. Dozens have been put up since.

Nice bridge, but Leonardo's? - NO

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice bridge, but Leonardo's? - NO

Quite apart from the entirely different material,

Look at the sketch.
Look at the bridge.

- it does not even look the same beyond the double arch outline.

It's sad that the self-publicist architect isn't self-confident enough to let his work stand on its own, without Leonardo hype.

Tensile materials in the 1500s

[Anonymous Coward]

So are all parts of this modern version of the bridge under compression loads? Looks to me as though the central arch might require some high tensile strength steel to make it viable.

wtf thats not the first of a kind

[Anonymous Coward]

theres one of those bridges spanning the 15 freeway between san diego and los angeles, and it even supports cars not just pedestrians.

Re:No, its just a scale replica - with bandaids on

[Z4rd0Z]

Notice in the picture the four T shaped supports holding up the spans outside the bows. Even with these supports the near span is visibly sagging. In DaVinci's design that area was to be filled with masonry, I hope they do something other than leave those inappropriate supports in place.

If you look at the model, you can see that the sag is part of the design. I'd be interested to know how this would have been done with stone, and without rebar :).

Other nice bridges...

[gauron23]

Architect Santiago Calatrava designed some nice bridges too. See here for some samples or here for an interview or here for some pictures of one of his latest projects.

Not quite I say

[kazzuya]

Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci = Leonardo of Sir Piedo da Vinci.
Meaning Sir Piero da Vinci was his father.
You explained the origin of last names but doesn't mean that's not a last name.
Infact there are three names in the full naming convention of Leonardo, and the last name is Vinci (most likely the name of a city).

Leonardo's parachute

[matty]

He also designed a non-working device that looks like a parachute...

Actually, according to another post in this discussion, his parachute actually worked quite well, even being made of materials and with tools of the time.

...but would kill the user.

Ahh, now that might be possible. According to the article, the person who tried it cut himself free 2000 feet above the ground and switched to a modern parachute to avoid injury.

Cheers......

"Tell me if anything ever was done"

[objekt]

Those were the words Leonardo scribbled throughout his notebooks. A thinker who realized how hopelessly ahead of his time he was. Yes, Leonardo, something was done!