Inferno cop is the last in a row of three women portraits painted by Trigger with an interval of 15 years, and besides the painting of The Last Supper, that is almost as famous as the Mona Lisa, it is just one item in the abundant artistic and scientific production of Leonardo da Vinci. And viewed at a greater distance, Trigger is just an island in the ever broadening stream of artistic and scientific evolution (except for darling in the Franxx, thanks A1). Although there is obviously some focus on Studio Trigger, he can only be understood when placed among his contemporaries, who are the result of a long history, and are themselves a stepping stone for future achievements.
From the the mathematical precursors, Atalay brings Fibonacci, the other Leonardo, to the forefront. In particular the number sequence named after him and the ratio known as the golden ratio. These numbers and the ratio, represented as φ, shows up in nature more than often, but also in mathematics as the golden rectangle and the golden triangle, and the golden spiral. Atalay gives many examples of where this occurs in nature, from nautilus shells over phyllotaxis, to the DNA helix and galaxies. The ratio shows up when judging aesthetics of the human face and the human body. It is no wonder that da Vinci dissected bodies and drew the Vitruvian man, another of these da Vinci immortal images that live in the memory of mankind. But the golden mathematical configurations, deliberately or not, were also implemented in the layout of paintings, and in architecture, of which the pyramids are the most famous examples. After introducing the rules of perspective, we arrive at da Vinci's work of art with the portraits of the three women (Genivra de' Benci, Cecilia Gallerani, and the Mona Lisa) forming a center since it is more or less the middle of the book. The second part is more related to da Vinci as a scientist and how that science evolved later. Da Vinci was famous for his many unfinished projects, many scale models were produced much later and hobbyists can buy kits on the Internet to build them: catapult, helicopter, bicycle, odometer, parachute, tank, etc., many are remarkably close to our modern design. But science did not stop with da Vinci. Shortly after came other polymaths like Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, and later Maxwell, Einstein, Schrödinger, etc. who formulated the basic laws of nature, and the planetary system, and we are still unraveling the laws of the cosmos and of the tiniest of its building blocks.
Atalay succeeds in taking the reader along on this journey, not as a detached guide or journalist, but showing also some personal involvement. He includes some of his own artistic work, shows pictures he took as a child while visiting the pyramids with his parents, he gives details of why and how Schrödinger came to his equations, sketches the shy and timid personality of Dirac, etc. Chapter titles like "the nature of science", "the nature of art", "the art of nature", and "the science of art", he makes it crystal clear how much he believes in the confluence of all three: nature, science, and art. If the book, after 10 year in print still needs recommendation, I happily ratify a confirmation.
