Find the greatest subject matter expert available for a given discipline. Tap their knowledge.
The greatest people I have worked with have taken the same approach. Experts are incredibly willing to share. You may have to work around their schedule, but they will share. Just ask.
Give me an example. I have literally never had anyone show me anything unless I demonstrated proficiency on par with their own and they felt the need to impress me. That, or paying them lots and lots of money for personal lessons, which generally tend to be crap anyway.
I am baffled by the amount of people who espouse mentorship like it's actually a thing.
The list shows both Leonardo's dilettantism in Latin and mathematics, and how printing changed the way we learn. Even in 1490, to learn "how to square a triangle", you did not have to get the master of arithmetic to show you. You could find a copy of Euclid's Elements and skim it up to Proposition II.14 [1]. The first printed edition of Elements (in Latin) was published in 1482 [2].
I mean Leonardo himself knew he was horrible in both Latin and math. He had access to various books in both subjects during his lifetime (thanks in part to the printing press) but his lack of foundational knowledge made it hard for him to learn geometry when he lacked skills in arithmetic and algebra.
Secondly, it's a bit funny that you say the book could have shown him how to square a circle, seeing as it's an impossible problem.
If you're looking for more of Da Vinci, I can't recommend Walter Isaacson's biography enough. I just wrapped it up, and it gave me huge respect for a figure I knew only passingly before. Particularly the conclusion, which is one of the better summaries on lessons learned from a text that I've seen.
I see that several people commented on Leonardo's curiosity. When I was about 18 or therabouts I came across a book about Leonardo. That book made a big deal about how curiosity was the driving force in Leonardo's life. I was so impressed that I started to believe curiosity was the defining characteristic of humans. And I became curious about everything around me. I chose the study of how this world works as my mission in life. I chose not to make money. I only worked to make enough money to pay the rent. The rest of the time I was in the library. But there is a downsize to this. I now believe that it's better not to be curious. It's better to concentrate on building a business and make money. Because in this world money allows you to build new things and make new discoveries. Bezos can build his own rocket and go to the moon if he wants to. Google can and does change the world. They are not doing what they are doing for curiosity's sake. So I would not advise a youngster who is starting in life to be curious like Leonardo. I would advise to make lots of money so that he/she can achieve big things. I think the era of curious and solitary researcher is over.
> I would advise to make lots of money so that he/she can achieve big things.
Just because one wants to make lots of money, does not mean one will. For every Bezos or Elon Musk, there's fifty thousand failed company founders. So, if your path to happiness has "Get Rich" as step 1, that sets you up for high likelihood of failure from the start.
I think a better path is "be curious, and look for ways to make money with the things you learn".
Nearly anyone can be a cog in the corporate machine or a code monkey - there's an infinite amount of grunt work to be done, and always will be. In my experience, people who seem to enjoy their work are those who work at intersections of disciplines and find unexpected uses for their domain knowledge.
I took it as he literally wrote like that, from this line,
> You can see a page of Da Vinci’s notebook above but be warned. Even if you are conversant in 16th century Italian, Da Vinci wrote everything in mirror script.
People today are not as curious as Leonardo was. For him learning was an everyday occupation. Most people today seek entertainment and distraction. Maybe its the advent of so many cool technologies that did not exist back then to capture our time. But I imagine Leonardo would have read Hacker News for sure.
"Draw Milan"..pretty ambitious task. Obviously DaVinci didn't consider breaking down the tasks into smaller pieces. The GTD method involves this concept directly in its flow. In today's world, the breaking up of tasks is especially valuable. Here's an article about GTD from our blog: https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-getting-thin...
[+] [-] ddoran|7 years ago|reply
The greatest people I have worked with have taken the same approach. Experts are incredibly willing to share. You may have to work around their schedule, but they will share. Just ask.
[+] [-] madeuptempacct|7 years ago|reply
I am baffled by the amount of people who espouse mentorship like it's actually a thing.
[+] [-] mci|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/elements/bookII/propII14.h... [2] https://archive.org/details/preclarissimusli00eucl
[+] [-] sushid|7 years ago|reply
Secondly, it's a bit funny that you say the book could have shown him how to square a circle, seeing as it's an impossible problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle
[+] [-] blairbeckwith|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nyc111|7 years ago|reply
I see that several people commented on Leonardo's curiosity. When I was about 18 or therabouts I came across a book about Leonardo. That book made a big deal about how curiosity was the driving force in Leonardo's life. I was so impressed that I started to believe curiosity was the defining characteristic of humans. And I became curious about everything around me. I chose the study of how this world works as my mission in life. I chose not to make money. I only worked to make enough money to pay the rent. The rest of the time I was in the library. But there is a downsize to this. I now believe that it's better not to be curious. It's better to concentrate on building a business and make money. Because in this world money allows you to build new things and make new discoveries. Bezos can build his own rocket and go to the moon if he wants to. Google can and does change the world. They are not doing what they are doing for curiosity's sake. So I would not advise a youngster who is starting in life to be curious like Leonardo. I would advise to make lots of money so that he/she can achieve big things. I think the era of curious and solitary researcher is over.
[+] [-] aeontech|7 years ago|reply
> I would advise to make lots of money so that he/she can achieve big things.
Just because one wants to make lots of money, does not mean one will. For every Bezos or Elon Musk, there's fifty thousand failed company founders. So, if your path to happiness has "Get Rich" as step 1, that sets you up for high likelihood of failure from the start.
I think a better path is "be curious, and look for ways to make money with the things you learn".
Nearly anyone can be a cog in the corporate machine or a code monkey - there's an infinite amount of grunt work to be done, and always will be. In my experience, people who seem to enjoy their work are those who work at intersections of disciplines and find unexpected uses for their domain knowledge.
[+] [-] thegabez|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hguhghuff|7 years ago|reply
And each of his todo items, like mine, look like they could easily explode out into 20 more.
[+] [-] milansm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] splittingTimes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmartrican|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justaguyhere|7 years ago|reply
What does it mean? Is he drawing the entire city?!
Jeez, here I am, writing "do laundry" in my list :(
[+] [-] markn951|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madeuptempacct|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rimher|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] l5870uoo9y|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logix|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikrim|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loco5niner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onemoresoop|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tehnix|7 years ago|reply
> You can see a page of Da Vinci’s notebook above but be warned. Even if you are conversant in 16th century Italian, Da Vinci wrote everything in mirror script.
[+] [-] john2x|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] purvis|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pmiri|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madshiva|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] coldcode|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cabalamat|7 years ago|reply
Nor were they in 1490.
[+] [-] PeOe|7 years ago|reply