Secret of Leonardo da Vinci's drawing discovered after 500 years. It's about geometric detail

Has the mystery of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous drawing finally been solved? A London dentist claims to have found a hidden geometric detail in the Vitruvian Man, a discovery that scientists have been waiting for for five centuries.

For over five centuries, scholars, artists and mathematicians have puzzled over how Leonardo da Vinci managed to perfectly inscribe the human silhouette inside a circle and a square in The Vitruvian Man .

Although the Roman architect Vitruvius claimed in ancient times that the human figure fits perfectly into these shapes, no one explained how this was possible.

Now, London dentist Rory Mac Sweeney says he has found the missing piece of the puzzle.

Leonardo da VInci, sketch of Vitruvian Man, 1492 / Wikimedia Commons

Dr. Rory Mac Sweeney, a dentist from London, carefully analyzed Leonardo's drawing , using his knowledge of jaw anatomy . His attention was drawn to a small, previously unnoticed element - an equilateral triangle "hidden" between the figure's spread legs . In his opinion, this is the key to understanding how da Vinci connected the body with geometric forms .

Sweeney linked the triangle to the concept of Bonwill's triangle , known in dental anatomy. This shape "connects" the articulation points of the mandible with the lower incisors and has been used since the 19th century to describe the ideal function of the human jaw . Surprisingly, Leonardo was to use this arrangement centuries before the birth of modern anatomy - either consciously or instinctively.

Dr. Sweeney, in a study published in the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, went a step further and noted that using a triangle allows us to calculate the ratio of the side of a square to the radius of a circle, which is about 1.64. This "tetrahedral" ratio is very close to the number 1.6333 - a special value that nature often uses in its most efficient structures, such as in the construction of cells.

- We were all looking for complicated theories, and Leonardo himself gave us the solution. His genius was that he was able to capture in one sketch the universal principle of design, the same principle that nature uses to build perfect forms - says Sweeney, quoted by Metro.co.uk.

What does this mean for the history of art and science? The discovery by a London dentist could finally put an end to centuries of debate about how da Vinci achieved such perfect harmony of shapes.