“It is impossible that men should be able to fly craftily by their own strength.”

-Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and mathematician, 1608-1679.

This quote is from the father of biomechanics, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli. Born in Naples in 1608, Borelli was a Renaissance scientist whose work focused on physics and physiology. His major work, De Motu Animalium, or On the Movement of Animals, was the first major investigation into biomechanics. Throughout the work, Borelli studied the flight of birds and made many discoveries relating to animal muscles and how they function. He also considered human flight, and he calculated that our bodies are too heavy and our muscles are too weak to fly. The above quote is his declaration that it’s impossible for humans to fly using only our own strength.[1]

Read more about the human body and why we can’t fly here.


[1]: Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso. “De Motu Animalium” in A Source Book in Animal Biology. Edited by Thomas S. Hall. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. 158-164. Digital transcript available at http://www.originalsources.com.