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In Round One of TLT's Great Science Smackdown, we pit Leonardo da Vinci against Thomas Edison. Comparing two titans, particularly given their different eras, is a daunting task, but in the end TLT readers gave the nod to Leonardo, 60% to 40%. Both men have their admirers, but readers gave the edge to da Vinci for the enormous breadth of his endeavors and for the fact that he lived in essentially a pre-sclentific age and had a smaller body of work from which to build. In next month's Smackdown, we pit science's two greatest physicists: Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. We'll also reveal the ranking when we asked readers to evaluate the contributions to Mankind of all four giants.
All evidence supports that da Vinci's work was done for the love of science.
Edison had a never-say-quit attitude and was very thorough in trying things.
Leonardo-because of the prescientific time in which he lived and the sheer scope of his work. He didn't have people helping him as Edison did.
Edison was the greater inventor/scientist because he brought more of his inventions to fruition than did da Vinci. Some of da Vinci's visionary works are obviously unsound, something he would have discovered using a more rigorous scientific method-the hallmark of great scientists.
da Vinci lived at a time before many scientific principles were widely accepted, yet he created many of the concepts upon which scientific principles were later based.
While da Vinci was brilliant, he was ahead of his time. Edison was the man of the moment, and he was responsible for moving technical advances quickly into an environment that needed the immediate impact his inventions provided.
da Vinci was ahead of his time and set the table for future innovators like Edison.
Thomas Edison was more of a hands-on type of guy. He worked with physical items and not just theories or ideology.
In every era there is a forerunner for which we cannot comprehend. Without light there only remains darkness.
Leonardo wins overall because his knowledge expanded to all the sciences and construction at a time when it was outright dangerous to think the way he thought.
Although da Vinci's ideas eventually came to be, Edison's inventions were useful within his lifetime and...