> But imagine how poetic it would have been if the technology for constructing such a machine had been available to da Vinci all along.

Very poetic indeed.

Most of entrepreneurship is applying known models to new areas. Intellectually not nearly as stimulating or hard as theoretical math, but the shape and form looks similar - you do not know if a solution exists, you do not know if a problem really exists.

What's funny to me is that, since it's usually applications of engineering, the technology is almost always there. It's a matter of tinkering a collection of things the right way.

I ditched a career in Physics to start a company long back. This post made me think I probably haven't lost much :-)