I was watching a series of lectures today related to Leonardo DaVinci. This year is the 500th anniversary of the great man’s death, so there are a lot of DaVinci related events going on these days.
DaVinci’s life spanned the turn of the year 1500AD, and that got me thinking about other influential thinkers who were born in one century and died in the next. 1600AD gives us William Shakespeare for one. For 1700AD we have Bach and Newton, among others.
1800AD was particularly rich, yielding Goethe, Gauss and Austen to name just a few. When I think of 1900AD I mainly think of Albert Einstein, but that’s just me.
Imagine a dinner party with Leonardo DaVinci, William Shakespeare, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jane Austen and Albert Einstein. We would definitely want to throw in a universal translator, and presumably some excellent bottles of wine.
I would love to be a fly on the wall for that gathering!