Dear All, Two nights ago, I watched a British documentary on the construction of two of Leonardo Da Vinci's machines from his original drawings. The machines they chose were a large catapult and a winged flying machine.
I was not surprised when the program described all dimensions in feet, inches, and pounds as it seems to be firm BBC policy to promote old measures whenever they can, and to avoid metric measures at all times. However, I was delighted to see the confusion -- half way through construction of the giant catapult -- when they realised that some of their engineers were working in feet and inches while others were working in millimetres. This was a real problem as they were working to a tight schedule. [As a side issue, it didn't fill me full of confidence about the reliability of Oxford University trained engineers.] They mentioned the measurement problem, but didn't elaborate on it, so I don't know if the ultimate failure of the catapult was due to another measurement confusion, or to Leonardo's original design. I will probably watch Part 2 of this 2 part series next Sunday. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia --
