Leonardo Da Vinci's Water Theory: On the Origin and Fate of Water

摘要

Fascinating, revealing, and inspiring, Leonardo Da Vinci's Water Theory opens up a new history to the study of water. Two hundred years before Newton, Perrault, and Halley, Leonardo Da Vinci was doing hypothesis-driven science and describing and classifying hydrological processes. For example, he came close to the modern definition of the hydrological cycle, recognizing that water passes through the major river systems countless times, summing up to volumes much greater than those contained in the world's oceans. Pfister, Savenije, and Fenicia carefully report Da Vinci's seminal work and provide a modern hydrological backdrop. The book includes many of Da Vinci's sketches, which are surprisingly accurate relative to today's knowledge.