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Da Vinci Bridge Built

Posted by michael on from the better-late-than-never dept.

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.

6 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Overbudget by Ratbert42 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.

  2. Another cool old bridge by e4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

  3. Da Vinci bicycle by John+Harrison · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

    --
    Lasers Controlled Games!
  4. Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo". by TomV · · Score: 5, Informative
    "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

  5. there's a sucker born every few centuries by abde · · Score: 5, Funny


    "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

    --
    Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
  6. Re:It's not "da Vinci"; it's "Leonardo". by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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