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The video above from Sabins Civ­il Engi­neer­ing promis­es to disclose “the MAGIC behind Da Vinci’s Self Sup­port­ing Bridge.” That seems like a typ­i­cal examination­ple of YouTube hyper­bole, although on first look, it isn’t in any respect obvi­ous how the frag­ile-look­ing struc­ture can keep up, a lot much less sup­port the burden of a cross­ing military. Not solely does the design use no per­ma­nent joints, says the nar­ra­tor, “the extra weight on the bridge, the stronger it turns into.” The secret’s the dis­tinc­tive man­ner wherein the items inter­lock, and the way it directs power to cre­ate a “fric­tion lock” that ensures sta­bil­i­ty.

Take away only one piece of the bridge, how­ev­er, and all of it comes crash­ing down, which is extra fea­ture than bug: designed to facil­i­tate troop transfer­ments, the struc­ture might be dis­man­tled to pre­vent use by the ene­my much more eas­i­ly than it was put up within the first place.

Simply one of many var­i­ous instruments of warfare Leonar­do got here up with, this bridge was con­ceived beneath the patron­age of the well-known states­man Cesare Bor­gia (a chief inspi­ra­tion for Nic­colò Machi­avel­li’s The Prince), who employed him as an archi­tect and mil­i­tary engi­neer within the ear­ly fif­teen-hun­dreds.

Although Leonar­do’s bridge designs have confirmed influ­en­tial within the half-mil­len­ni­um since his demise — consider him subsequent time you cross the Gala­ta Bridge in Istan­bul — no evi­dence stays that he ever constructed one in his life­time. However in contrast to most of his inven­tions, actual­ized or the­o­ret­i­cal, you possibly can construct it your­self right this moment with­out a lot dif­fi­cul­ty. The video presents an examination­ple massive sufficient to stroll throughout, which can make it really feel somewhat much less sta­ble than it actu­al­ly is. Luck­i­ly for stu­dents look­ing to beneath­stand the self-sup­port­ing bridge in a hands-on man­ner, the identical engi­neer­ing prin­ci­ples apply simply as properly on the extra man­age­ready scale of pop­si­cle sticks — a mod­ern construct­ing mate­r­i­al at which Leonar­do him­self would positive­ly have mar­veled.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Easy methods to Construct Leonar­do da Vinci’s Inge­nious Self-Sup­port­ing Bridge: Renais­sance Inno­va­tions You Can Nonetheless Get pleasure from At this time

MIT Researchers 3D Print a Bridge Imag­ined by Leonar­do da Vin­ci in 1502— and Show That It Actu­al­ly Works

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Inven­tions Come to Life as Muse­um-Qual­i­ty, Work­ready Mod­els: A Swing Bridge, Scythed Char­i­ot, Per­pet­u­al Movement Machine & Extra

The Inge­nious Inven­tions of Leonar­do da Vin­ci Recre­at­ed with 3D Ani­ma­tion

Leonar­do da Vin­ci Attracts Designs of Future Battle Machines: Tanks, Machine Weapons & Extra

Constructed to Final: How Historic Roman Bridges Can Nonetheless With­stand the Weight of Mod­ern Automobiles & Vehicles

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the ebook The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social web­work for­mer­ly often known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.