Leonardo da Vinci’s Visualization of Gravity as a Form of

Acceleration

Morteza Gharib, Chris Roh, Flavio Noca

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 T e c h n i c a l A r t i c l e
Leonardo da Vinci’s Visualization of
Gravity as a Form of Acceleration
M o r t e z a G h ari b , C h ris R o h , a n d F l av i o N o ca
Despite limited tools, Leonardo da Vinci displayed ingenious problem-
A BST R ACT
solving. The authors examine a combination of Leonardo’s thought
and physical experiments regarding the acceleration of falling objects.
Leonardo recorded that if a water-pouring vase moves transversally
(sideways), mimicking the trajectory of a vertically falling object, it
generates a right (as in orthogonal) triangle with equal leg length,
composed of falling material lining up diagonally (forming the
hypotenuse) and the vase trajectory forming one of the legs. On the
hypotenuse, Leonardo wrote “Equatione di Moti,” or equalization of
motions, noting the equivalence of the two orthogonal motions, one
effected by gravity and the other prescribed by the experimenter. The
authors present an analytical solution using Newtonian mechanics to
confirm Leonardo’s “Equivalence principle.”
Background
About 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci tried to uncover the
mystery of gravity and its connection to acceleration through
a series of ingenious experiments guided only by his imagi-
nation and masterful experimental techniques. In this article,
the authors focus on da Vinci’s approach and thought pro-
cesses and present them in the language of contemporary
scholarship. The authors intentionally avoided a historical
review on the subject of gravity, while acknowledging that
breakthroughs by Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Loránd Eötvös,
among others, played essential roles in unraveling the laws of
gravity and dynamics [1] In this article, we hope to display an
example of problem-solving by a great mind without access
to modern measuring instruments or mathematical tools—
just his creativity.
Morteza Gharib (educator), Graduate Aerospace Laboratories, California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, U.S.A. mail: mgharib@caltech.edu.
Chris Roh (educator), Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cor-
nell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, U.S.A. Email: cr296@cornell.edu.
Flavio Noca (educator), HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western
Switzerland, Geneva, Switzerland. Email: flavio.noca@hesge.ch.
See https://direct.mit.edu/leon/issue/56/1 for supplemental files associated with
this issue.
©2023 ISAST   https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02322 LEONARDO, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 21–27, 2023 21
L5601_interior.indd 21
Acceleration as a Degree of Velocity
Throughout his lifetime, Leonardo was fascinated by the dy-
namics of objects in motion, from bird flight and projectiles
to falling hail, flowing river, and moving clouds.
He worked tirelessly to understand the laws of motion
and the nature of the “impetus,” or momentum in modern
mechanics [2], the parameter that, at the time, was believed
to enable objects to move. Leonardo was more intrigued by
a specific type of impetus that caused objects to accelerate
toward earth under gravity, or gravitas. Leonardo described
the action of gravitas by observing that “a weight that de-
scends freely in every degree of time acquires . . . a degree of
velocity” [3]. Many scholars of Leonardo [4–6] note that this
statement indicates that Leonardo correctly understood that
the velocity of a falling object is a linear function of time. This
discovery is popularly attributed to Galileo.
In his efforts to understand gravity by studying falling ob-
jects, Leonardo conducted a series of experiments with roll-
ing balls on inclined surfaces [7] that could be considered the
precursor to the experiments presented in this article. Leon-
ardo was clearly aware of the distinction between constant
velocity and accelerated motion as well as the fact that falling
objects do not fall with constant velocity [8]. It is important
to note that the concept of inertia was unknown at that time.
In his earlier writings, Leonardo had accepted the Aristote-
lian belief that imparting a continuous force is necessary for
any object to move [9]. It must have been puzzling for him to
observe objects such as a rolling ball on an inclined surface
or a stone accelerating toward the ground without any force
imparted to them. In the series of Leonardo’s experiments
we present here, he concentrated on the accelerated motions
from which he could envision a relationship between gravitas
and the natural motion of falling objects without the need for
the Aristotelian concept of continuous force. In his later writ-
ings, including a note to himself, he advised: “Speak first of
motion, then of weight because it arises from motion; then of
force, which arises from weight and motion” [10]. From what
we present here, one can arguably conclude that Leonardo’s
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 motivation to conduct these experiments was to demonstrate
his hunch that gravitas is a form of acceleration and that it
can be simulated to act on an object in any direction.
In his writings, Leonardo used the term moto natural to
refer to the “natural motion” of falling objects under earth’s
gravity and moto directo, or “prescribed motion,” to refer to
the motion of objects with finite acceleration. His approach
to proving his idea was to find a quantitative equivalence for
“natural motion” through a simulated “prescribed motion”
that could mimic an object’s natural movement under earth’s
gravity, say in a transverse direction. Leonardo’s search for
this elusive gravity-related “prescribed motion,” as presented
in Arundel MS 263, folio 144v [11], is one of the rare cases
where he tries to show such similarities through “quantitative
equivalence” rather than through “qualitative analogs” [12].
Considering what was known at the time, Leonardo had a
limited understanding of the nature of the gravitational field.
However, he correctly understood that the velocity of falling
objects under moto natural is not constant and that veloc-
ity increases with time. He was determined to find to what
“degree” of velocity a falling object gains for every degree of
time so he could mimic it through a simulated prescribed
motion. In other words, he was, inadvertently, aiming to
find the degree, or the constant, that relates time to veloc-
ity (V = constant × t), or as we know this degree today: the
gravitational constant “g” [13].
Leonardo conceived of an experiment that, as we show
below, would have a non-Aristotelian nature. He was inspired
by observing fast-moving clouds that produced hail. He con-
jectured that a cloud should have traveled the same distance
as the descending hail would have if it had the same velocity
behavior of the hail with time [14]. He thought of using a
jar (as the stand-in for the cloud) that could pour sand or
water (to simulate the falling hail) to show that an artificially
a b
d [24]: (a) Leonardo’s hypothesis;
e of conditions for the transverse
22 Gharib et al., Leonardo da Vinci’s Visualization of Gravity as a Form of Acceleration
L5601_interior.indd 22
generated prescribed motion could emulate that of a falling
object for each degree of time [15]. One may wonder how he
could have conducted such an experiment without having
an accurate timing clock. Reliable timing clocks only became
available in 1658, almost 140 years after Leonardo’s death [16].
To resolve the lack of time measurement, Leonardo (cor-
rectly) assumed that the time it takes an object to reach the
ground from a given height is constant. Throughout his ex-
periments, he therefore used height as a measure of time.
In other words, he switched time with space to be able to
conduct this experiment [17].
Mimicking the “g” Effect
In this article, we attempt to make a coherent story from
Leonardo’s scattered writings on connecting “g” to accel-
eration. As conjectured above, it appears that Leonardo in-
tended to mimic the effect of gravity on an object to show
that the gravitas effect is not unique; that a similar falling
movement could be created through a unique type of pre-
scribed motion in a direction other than toward earth. He
had already realized that the motion of objects moving to-
ward earth is secondary to the more important principle—
that the resultant acceleration vector determines an object’s
motion and trajectory, toward either earth or sky. One can
conclude that Leonardo knew that the effect of gravity could
be countered or modified by acceleration or that the effect
of gravity and acceleration on a given mass are the same and
are thus interchangeable.
Leonardo presented the theory behind his jar experiment
in the form of a right triangle, shown in his sketch (Fig. 1a)
[18], where the vertical axis represents the direction of the
naturally falling motion of an object (moto natural) and the
horizontal axis represents that of an imposed prescribed
movement in a transverse direction. As stated above, Leo­
c
Fig. 1.  Leonardo’s schematics
and notes for his hypothesis and
experiment of the equivalence of the
effects of acceleration and gravitation
(b) Leonardo’s presentation of his
experiments with acceleration for
granular materials; (c) and using
liquids; (d) Leonardo’s note on
the formation of an isosceles right
triangle; (e) Leonardo’s descriptions
prescribed motion to be equivalent to
the falling natural motion of objects
(see supplementary material for
translations). By permission of the
British Library.
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a b
nardo assumed that all objects falling under moto natural
will reach the ground from a given height at the same time
interval. Thus, he could use the height as a measure of the
time. He also used the marked distances along the horizontal
axis as a relative measure of time with respect to the triangle’s
vertical height.
Next, Leonardo conjectured that if one releases particles,
such as sand for example, continuously from an object such
as a vase, that the sand would move along the horizontal axis
in a prescribed motion (constant acceleration). The move-
ment would represent the hypotenuse of a triangle created
by connecting the position of the first particle moving along
the vertical axis under natural motion to those particles re-
leased subsequently from the vase, thereby representing the
location of all particles released up to that instant of time.
Leonardo applied the above conclusion to any prescribed
(accelerated) motion of the sand poured from the vase, ex-
cept for zero acceleration (i.e. constant velocity), for which
no triangle would form; instead it would form a vertical line.
Following these thoughts, Leonardo claimed that if he
could precisely replicate the same prescribed motion (ac-
celeration) for the vase that naturally falling objects are
subjected to, but in a transverse direction, then the triangle
he previously described would be an isosceles orthogonal
triangle (Fig. 1d). We note again that by comparing the dis-
tances traveled by the falling sand along the vertical axis,
Leonardo exchanged time with space as a unit of measure.
To demonstrate equation di moti, or equalization of motions,
Leonardo determined that he needed to keep the height of
the vase fixed, to mark a horizontal distance equivalent to the
vertical size, and try to accelerate the vase to reach that dis-
tance at the same time the first pieces of sand hit the ground.
According to Leonardo’s depictions in Arundel MS 263, f143
(Figs 1b,c), he conducted an experiment where he would move
a vase filled with granular materials (quantita disscontinua)
while allowing the contents to fall from the neck of the vase
to the right of the point of inception “a.” He reported (deduced
by the authors of this article from Leonardo’s figures) that he
could exactly mimic the natural motion of falling objects (i.e.
Gharib et al., Leonardo da Vinci’s Visualization of Gravity as a Form of Acceleration 23
L5601_interior.indd 23
Fig. 2.  Leonardo’s analysis
of his experiment in which
he correctly used the phrase
“equalization of motion” for
the trajectory of an object
moving under two identical
but orthogonal acceleration
fields [25]. By permission of
the British Library.
a uniform acceleration) and showed that the granular particles,
or continuum liquid, would line up in a straight line, repre-
senting the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle, consistent
with his prediction. It is important to note that if Leonardo had
mimicked a constant velocity (zero acceleration) rather than
a constant acceleration for the vase, as we show below, there
would be no hypotenuse and thus no triangle would form. It
is hard to imagine that Leonardo would have missed seeing
the equivalency of “g” in the vertical axis with the vase’s physi-
cal acceleration in the transverse direction. Otherwise, why
did he even try to match it with a type of prescribed motion
that produced his celebrated isosceles triangle? To support the
above point, we note that on the schematic where he shows
an analysis of his experimental results (Fig. 2) [19], Leonardo
wrote “equationi di moti,” or equalization of motions, only on
the isosceles right triangle.
For today’s experimentalists who consider the visual-
ization challenges in Leonardo’s experiments, one realizes
that he could not have imaged or seen such a straight line
(hypotenuse) of the front of the falling sand particles. We
can only conclude that he used his visual skills and graphical
memory to visualize a moving hypotenuse and locate its two
endpoints. Today, such experiments can be conveniently per-
formed using high-speed cameras or numerical simulation
of Lagrangian equations of motion. In the next section, we
present such simulations to gain a better insight into Leon-
ardo’s attempts to unravel the nature of gravitas.
Simulation of Leonardo’s Experiment
Here, we examine Leonardo’s experiment using Newton’s
second law to show that Leonardo’s observations are con-
sistent with modern mechanics. As the vase moved to the
right, the location and initial horizontal velocity of a released
particle depended on when the particle was released. The
particles, after leaving the vase, no longer experienced hori-
zontal acceleration but rather started to experience vertical
gravitational acceleration. Therefore, the “time of release” = ti
is suitable for labeling each particle released from the vase.
(In classical mechanics, this is called the particle’s Lagrangian
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 a b c

Fig. 3.  Leonardo’s simulated vase experiments: (a) Leonardo’s experiments; (b) simulation with prescribed acceleration equalling gravity; (c) simulation with prescribed
acceleration equaling quarter of gravity. Particle trajectories are shown in open circle. The vase moves from left to right. The duration of the vase’s movement is 1 second.

description.) The initial position and velocity of the released prescribed and gravitational acceleration are equal (Fig. 3).
particle at ti is Hence, Leonardo had to emulate the “g” type of accelera-
tion for his vase to produce an isosceles triangle. If the vase
Initial Position = xo = –12ati2
was accelerated to a constant velocity, only after which the
Initial Velocity = vx,o = ati particles were released, the line formed by the particles at a
certain moment in time would be vertical lines (Fig. 4a). (See
Thus, the horizontal position of the particles follows Equa-
note, supplementary material, for calculation detail.)
tion 1a:
x(t, ti) = vx,o(ti) * (t – ti) + xo(ti) =
  ati * (t – ti) + –12ati2; t ≥ ti (Equation 1a)
Here t is advancing time, whereas ti is a marker that labels
the particle. All particles’ initial vertical position and velocity
are zero. A particle gains vertical speed under the influence
of gravity. Therefore, the vertical position of the particles re-
leased at ti follows Equation 1b:
a
z(t, ti) = ––12 g(t – ti)2; t ≥ ti (Equation 1b)
Using Equations 1a and b, we can simulate the various con-
ditions that Leonardo encountered during his experiments.
Figure 3 shows the trajectory of each particle as well as the
shape made by the falling particles. The falling granular par-
ticles do indeed line up in a straight line along the triangle’s
hypotenuse. In a previous study a similar conclusion was
drawn from the graphical construction of particle trajectory
[20]. Notably, Fig. 3 shows that when the prescribed accelera-
tion is equal to “g,” the triangle is isosceles. This observation
can be verified analytically by taking a derivative of x(t, ti)
and z(t, ti) relative to ti at some t = t*. b

dx(t*, ti) dz(t*, ti)

= a(t* – ti); = g(t* – ti)
dti dti

dz g
slope = = (Equation 2)
dx a
Equation 2 shows that the slope is independent of t* and ti.
Thus, the slope of the released particles is the same every­
where and time invariant. The slope of the hypotenuse is
equal to the ratio between the gravitational and the pre-
scribed acceleration. The slope is equal to one only if the
Fig. 4.  Particle trajectories simulated with a vase moving with constant velocity
followed by a constant horizontal acceleration to one “g” at time = 5. The vase
moves from left to right. The straight blue lines represent all the particles at the
same moment in time. The curved black lines represent the particles’ trajectories
followed through time. (a) stationary frame of reference; (b) vase’s frame of
reference.

24 Gharib et al., Leonardo da Vinci’s Visualization of Gravity as a Form of Acceleration

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 Fig. 5.  Gravitational and pseudo-acceleration fields in Leonardo’s experiment. The gravitational field is modified by the pseudo-acceleration of magnitude a = g,
a = g/2, a = g/4. The solid lines represent particle trajectories of particles released from the origin.

Pseudo-Acceleration Leonardo’s Estimation of “g”

Leonardo’s studies of objects in free fall demonstrate that gravi-
tational and pseudo-acceleration fields are indistinguishable
locally when their magnitudes are the same. To visualize this, it
is useful to imagine an observer running with the accelerating
vase. The accelerating frame of reference does not change the
relative distance between the released particles; therefore, the
released particles’ geometry appears the same to both station-
ary and accelerating observers (Fig. 5).
In this noninertial frame of reference, a pseudo-accel-
eration field is created in the horizontal direction (Fig. 5).
The horizontal acceleration field modifies the gravitational
field, pointing the resultant acceleration field in the direc-
tion of their vector sum. Such an acceleration field allows the
particles to follow only a rectilinear trajectory at a resulting
vector angle. (If the acceleration field is time-varying, e.g.
x(t) = t3, then the particles would not line up on the triangle’s
hypotenuse.) Moreover, when the gravitational and pseudo-
acceleration fields are equal in magnitude, the hypotenuse is
a 45° angle (Fig. 5). Thus, Leonardo’s right isosceles triangle
formed by the particles lining up is a unique case in which
the gravitational and the pseudo-acceleration field are locally
equivalent. The sudden formation of the triangle and the dis-
covery of its isosceles nature demonstrating the equivalence
of moto natural and moto transversal might have been a eu-
reka moment for Leonardo.
Another intriguing aspect of Leonardo’s efforts to understand
gravity and its nature was his attempt to develop a quantita-
tive presentation of natural motion. In a diagram (Fig. 2), he
wrote “natural motion” next to the vertical leg, which indi-
cates that this was his model for particles free-falling under
gravitational pull. To represent this motion, Leonardo drew
a line between the object’s initial and final locations and bi-
sected the line several times. Presumably, the distance be-
tween consecutive bisecting locations represents the distance
the object traveled during a fixed time-step. Mathematically,
after scaling the time and distance with a single time-step
(total travel time divided by the number of steps) and initial
length (total distance traveled divided by two to the power
of number of steps), his model can be represented as follows:
Leonardo’s model: z(t) = 2(t–1)n (Equation 3)
where n is the number of successive bisections of the to-
tal distance traveled (see note, supplementary material, for
scaling details). This disagrees with Newtonian mechanics,
which has reversed exponent and base (Fig. 6a):
Accurate model: z(t) = t2 (Equation 4)
One might dismiss Leonardo’s description of free-
falling motion under gravity as entirely wrong. How-

a b c

Fig. 6.  Comparison of doubling trajectory (Equation 5) and quadratic trajectory (Equation 6). (a) Time interval from 0 to 1. (b) Best-fit curve, z(t) = 0.977 · t 2,
through Leonardo’s model. (c) Number of halving (n) versus root-mean-square difference (see supplementary note for details)

Gharib et al., Leonardo da Vinci’s Visualization of Gravity as a Form of Acceleration 25

L5601_interior.indd 25 11/16/22 3:45 PM

 ever, in his manuscript, we noted the consistent way
he described the falling motion; he bisected the tra-
jectory of an object four times and four times only
(Fig. 2) [21]. In Equation 5, n is set to 4. Interest-
ingly, when n = 4, Equations 3 and 4 have a minimum
root-mean-square difference for time interval 0 to 1
(Fig. 6b; see note, supplementary material, for the
calculation detail). Leonardo’s restrained use of this
model may have been an attempt to best represent
his experimentally observed trajectory. Furthermore,
fitting z(t) = a · t2 to Leonardo’s five data points, where
a is a free parameter representing nondimensional
gravitational acceleration, shows that Leonardo’s
gravitational constant is 0.9774 (95% confidence in-
terval, 0.8535, 1.101), which is close to the nondimen-
sional gravity of 1 (Fig. 6c). These two observations
suggest that Leonardo’s model of natural motion,
while imperfect, was an accurate representation of
his observation of falling objects.
Conclusion
By developing a geometrical equivalency approach to
demonstrate the laws of motion, Leonardo showed
remarkable insight into the dynamics of falling ob-
jects by avoiding the need to know the exact value of
“g,” as long as we assume that “g” represents the rate
of change of velocity or acceleration. If he conducted
Acknowledgments
We thank Raimondo Pictet, whose work was crucial in translating the
legends of figures from MS Arundel 263l, f143, and f217. We also thank
davidkremers for his encouragement and support during the initiation
of this project. Morteza Gharib acknowledges that he was inspired by
Martin Kemp and his book Seen Unseen. In addition, we thank the Brit-
ish Library for permission to use original images from the Arundel MS
263. Transcriptions of Leonardo’s handwriting are taken from Biblioteca
Leonardiana (leonardodigitale.com).
References and Notes
Author contributions: M.G. conceived the concept. M.G., F.N., and C.R.
conducted the data collection. C.R. and M.G. analyzed and modeled
the data. M.G. and C.R equally contributed to writing the manuscript.
1 J.E. Faller, “The Measurement of Little g: A Fertile Ground for Pre-
cision Measurement Science,” Journal of Research of the National
Institute of Standards and Technology 110 (2005) pp. 559–581.
2 F. Capra, Learning from Leonardo: Decoding the Notebooks of a
Genius (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013) pp. 180–181.
3 MS. M, folio 45r.
26 Gharib et al., Leonardo da Vinci’s Visualization of Gravity as a Form of Acceleration
L5601_interior.indd 26
the experiment that he depicted in his manuscript,
then he could have been the first human who know-
ingly generated a “g” force effect without being in a
free-fall condition.
It is intriguing to ask whether Leonardo had the
equations of motion, unformulated, in front of him
(as Martin Kemp puts it) [22] and whether he had
the power of insight or feeling for these equations. As
with Galileo, Leonardo’s geometrical representation
of the equation of motion (Fig. 2) is as insightful as
Newtonian mechanics’ representations of equations
of motion. But we had to wait another 200 years to
see the power of differential calculus, which allowed
Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to formu-
late equations of motion as we know them today.
For Leonardo, waiting for the future of mathematics
to arrive was not an option, and that is why he re-
ferred to his discovery as the “equatione di moti,” or
equalization (equation) of motion. In the history of
physics and mechanics, the next time this phrase was
used was by Sir Isaac Newton in his 1688 “principia
mathematica philosophiae naturalis” or “Mathemati-
cal Principles of Natural Philosophy.” After Newton,
Albert Einstein referred to the equivalency of gravity
and acceleration, when he introduced the principles
of “strong equivalency” while developing his theory
of relativity in the early twentieth century [23].
4 E. Macagno, “Leonardian Fluid Mechanics—Unexplored Flow Stud-
ies in the Codex Arundel 263,” IIHR Monograph 106 (February 1989).
5 K.D. Keele, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Elements of Science of Man (1983)
p. 94.
6 Capra [2] pp. 192–193.
7 Keele [5].
8 MS. M, folio 59v.
9 See Ref. [8].
10 Codex Atlanticus, folio 42iv.
11 Arundel MS 263, folio 144v.
12 M. Kemp, Seen Unseen: Art, Science, and Intuition from Leonardo to
the Hubble Telescope (2006).
13 S. Magazu et al., “Leonardo da Vinci: Cause, Effect, Linearity, and
Memory,” Journal of Advanced Research 14 (2018) pp. 117–122.
14 Arundel MS 263, folio 216v.
15 Arundel MS 263, folio 144rp1.
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 16 W. I. Milham, Time & Timekeepers: Including the History, Con­ Manuscript received 9 August 2021.
struction, Care, and Accuracy of Clocks and Watches (New York:
Macmillan, 1945). Morteza Gharib is a professor of aeronautics and medical
engineering at California Institute of Technology. He is also the
17 See Ref. [14].
director of Graduate Aerospace Laboratory at Caltech (GAL-
18 Arundel MS 263, folio 143. CIT).
19 Arundel MS 263, folio 217r. Chris Roh is an assistant professor of biological and environ-
mental engineering at Cornell University. He is the principal
20 E. Macagno, “Lagrangian and Eulerian Descriptions in the Flow
investigator of the in vivo Fluid Dynamics Lab.
Studies of Leonardo da Vinci,” Raccoalta Vinciana 24 (1992) pp.
251–276. Flavio Noca is a professor of aerodynamics at HEPIA
21 See Refs. 11 and 19; also Arundel MS 263, folio 217v. (HES-SO University of Applied Science). He also lectures at
the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.
22 Kemp [12].
23 J. Ishiwara, Einstein Ko-en Roku (The Record of Einstein’s Addresses)
Tokyo–Tosho Tokyo (1971) p. 78.
24 See Ref. [18].
25 See Ref. [19].

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