Leonardo da Vinci

His lack of reverence for authority and his willingness to challenge received wisdom would lead him to craft an empirical approach for understanding nature that foreshadowed the scientific method developed more than a century later by Bacon and Galileo. His method was rooted in experiment, curiosity, and the ability to marvel at phenomena that the

Léonard laisse ce tableau inachevé pour une autre raison, plus fondamentale encore : il préfère la conception à l’exécution. Âgé de 29 ans, il est à l’époque plus distrait par le futur que concentré sur le présent. Le zèle inhérent à son génie met en péril sa discipline.

A lifelong note-taker, the entire collection of Leonardo's notes forms an exceedingly wide-ranging – albeit seemingly sporadic – thesis containing investigations into philosophy, optics, geometric perspective, anatomy and aviation. Only some of his notebooks have survived, but according to Martin Kemp, the world's foremost authority on Leonardo, th

Above all, Leonardo’s relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different