Leonardo Da Vinci: Mathematical Artist

Leonardo Da Vinci is known world-wide for his incredible art and his inventions that plunge him ahead of his time. Although he lived in the 14th century, he sketched amazingly accurate prototypes of machines that have inspired the modern-day inventors to produce similar gadget. Some examples are helicopters and war tanks.

However, the mind of Leonardo Da Vinci does not stop there. The artist made mathematical discoveries of nature and the human body that are still studied today. In his painting the "Vitruvian Man", Leo demonstrates the perfection of the human body.

Leonardo believed in the divinity of the human body, something he considered perfection. This sketch proves that the human body can be symmetrically inscribed in both a square and a circle. The Vitruvius man's limbs reach the sides of the square and the circumference of the circle, the navel is the centre. The circle is especially important as it is a symbol of divinity. Da Vinci was a believer in the divine proportions of the body in architecture, and this sketch definitely shows it.

The divine proportions lead us to the one we find everywhere in nature. PHI. It is the ratio to which everything is built around. 1.618. This ration defines growth and patterns. The number of female bees vs the number of male bees in a hive.The spirals of a sunflowers seeds. Leaf arrangement on a branch. And also in the human body. Distance from the tip of your head to the floor divided by the distance from your belly button to the floor is equal to 1.618. Distance from your should to your fingertips divided by the distance between your elbow to your fingertips. Hip to floor divided by knee to floor. Everything in the body is created based on this proportion. Try it yourself!!!

You guys may have heard of all this before, of course, in the Da Vinci Code, one of the coolest books ever that will get you hooked on math in art.