lol Tonyted I think you missed the point. I think what Touareg means is ~ was he from a later period such as 20th c. and travelled back to the 15th c. H.G.Wells and all that
If he was a time traveller ...why did he come back and show us how to make a helicopter, when he could have shown us how to make a time-travel machine?
Good point BLJnr. ........ but what if he were an alien sent to try and jump-start our species developement? Or what if he actually did travel back in time but the time machine went wrong/crashed/got damaged and somehow he mentally regressed and couldn't remember how to re-build it?
I think we already knew how to build boats, wasn't it submarines he was designing?
Or maybe he started to show us and we were so far out of sync with him - remember the church held sway over most things then and would have seen his designs as heresy or devil induced - that he thought better of it. maybe he realised that we would only use these marvellous inventions to destroy rather than build a better world?
could be wrong but i thought you could only travel back in time, too the point when the first time machine was made, so unless anyone else made one at the time?
In the village of Vinci in Italy, where he lived, they have a great museum and show working models of some of his inventions. If you saw his genius you would not think Touareg-8's suggestion is that far out.
He couldnt of gone back in time to teach people how to make time machines because then they would go forward in time to teach Vinci/others how to make one. Paradox. A time link Vinci taught himself how to make one hundreds of years before they were invented.
Plus, if people made time machines before Vinci did then he wouldnt need to go back in time to teach them coz they already knew. Then he wouldnt have gone back to teach them. Thus, they dont know what one is so he goes back and teaches them. Confusing...