Leonardo da Vinci sketch of eddies in a plunge pool

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first to visualize the complexity of turbulent flows. Here, he dropped grains of sand in a stream plunging into a pool of water, memorized their movements, dropped the grains in a slightly different place, repeating until he committed his memory to a sketch of the chaotic vortex and eddies formed in the plunge-pool, visualizing the highly complex movements of water normally invisible to us. From his study, the complexity of such swirling currents becomes apparent, with eddies in all sizes, all informing one another. The state-of-the-art visualization techniques used today are inspired by da Vinci’s insights. Ca. 1510-1513.