Two currents meet, with obstacles
Codex Leicester, Sheet 14A, folio 14r |
In his remarkable observations and illustrations of the "innumerable varieties of motion" of water, Leonardo focused especially on the flow of water around obstacles, discussing both its impact and rebound movements. He compared the flow of water and air, and he analyzed the shapes of bubbles and falling water-drops. Understanding wave action as impulse, Leonardo noted how two waves on a pond surface will pass through each other unimpeded. He even correctly compared water waves to sound and light.
Anticipating the modern science of hydrodynamics, Leonardo recognized some of the fundamental properties of fluids, which we now call density, viscosity, compressibility, surface tension and adhesion, and he showed how water pressure increases
with depth.
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