Buckminster Fuller

[Turtle]

___I never seem to provoke a response when I invoke my dear friend Bucky. Why is this? Is it that few have read his works? Is it because his work is well read & then discounted as useless?

___I may have said before that I believe they named Buckminster Fullerenes after him out of guilt for the ridicule he received when he he first proposed this structure for carbon. He proposed many similar such outrageous structures & systems which seem still to receive ridicule. What gives? :circle:

[Buffy]

He got quite unjustly attached to the hippie movement. Just because Stewart Brand put him in the Whole Earth Catalog. Go figure.

 

I once designed a house with a triangular hexagonal layout with a Fuller/Geodesic dome on top because I was so facinated by the possibilities going beyond just the basic dome shape, which Bucky always said was "just a starting point." Maybe someday I'll build it....

 

I also think not many people actually *read* his books which do read kinda like Edward O. Wilson: kinda hard to get through....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Turtle]

___I agree his writing is a difficult style to master; I never let that stop me though. I don't recognize Wilson, but I intend to follow up. Speaking of hard to read, try Metamagical Themas by Doug Hofstater(sp).

___Keeping on Fuller, I hope more of our experts here at Hypography post to this thread as I never see his views of gravity, radiation discussed in the threads on those topics. Phrases of his like inside-out & so on may sound (or at least did sound at the time) like gobblety gook, but as he found vindication in the real discovery & construction of his namesake Fullerenes, I have to wonder if he has considerable more to offer. Just a starting point as Buffy quoted him.

[Buffy]

I don't recognize Wilson, but I intend to follow up.

:circle: Wilson is uber hot these days. Try "Concilience"...

Speaking of hard to read, try Metamagical Themas by Doug Hofstater(sp).

True, but to be clear, Doug *edited* that book: its mostly not his writing which is incredibly readable (for a computer scientist! I can make that joke cuz I am one myself....). Try "Goedel, Escher & Bach" instead....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Turtle]

___I agree "Goedel, Escher & Bach" is highly more readable. I had it in mind today when I posted a momnet for Bach; a man who really knew how to count.

___On the topic of counting & Buckminster Fuller, he took the particular view that four is the more significant count over the more accepted three. Casually, Bucky might say "Four is a charm" rather than "three is a charm". More strictly, his division of space into tetrahedrons rather than cubes substantiates mathematically his theories on gravity etc.

___Experts? :circle:

[Turtle]

___I looked over some hyperlinks on Wilson; he doesn't seem to have any real science the way Fuller does. Your reference to Whole Earth catalog brings Escher's work to mind as well; don't you think the Catalog popularized his work in the US as well? As Doug points out, his understanding of symmetry is seminal. I used to have a fine work with many Escher's prints as well as notes on his nomenclature regarding symmetry.

___So back again to Fuller, who by any standard also has some seriously deep understanding of symmetry. Experts?

[Buffy]

I looked over some hyperlinks on Wilson; he doesn't seem to have any real science the way Fuller does.

You're right, because Wilson is probably best categorized as a philosopher. Fuller was an engineer...

don't you think the Catalog popularized his work in the US as well?

Now *that* would give Stew too much credit. I knew big time art collectors here in the US who got into him in the 40s and 50s, and the realist and super realist movement in the 60s and 70s was heavily influenced by him and referenced him as well. I had a math book from the seventies that used his work extensively too.

who by any standard also has some seriously deep understanding of symmetry. Experts?

Geez, most of the physicists from the last half of the century. Most of the Standard Model and its extensions are based on symmetry!

 

I'll think on that one some more though...

 

Bilaterally,

Buffy

[Dark Mind]

I need to read more...

[Turtle]

___And I don't believe I'm beating a dead horse; the horse is unconciouse, but alive & I'm just administering CPR. I can't believe my buddies here (C1ay ,Boreseun, UnclepAl, Infamouse, Bo, Alexander...uhmmm...you know; the experts. I need you guys to either help me resusitate Fuller or put him once again out of his misery. Bucky once said "death is the yet un-experienced lower freqencies". This drum is for Bucky.

[alxian]

@ 1500$ a gram?

 

to put that into context for the metrically challenged.. um.. a replica mars bar made from carbon nanostructures like buckminsterfullerene/nanotubes @ 56 grams = 84 grand..

 

hmmm i think i'll take the mercedes pat!

 

once the stuff, carbon nanostructures, can be quickly cheapily and produced in mass quantities then processed into final products its not of much use to most people.

 

I need to read more...

 

don't we all, those of us who can

[Turtle]

___I have no intention of discussing economics in this regard. The simple fact is, Fuller used his geometric tetra volume math to predict a fourth state of carbon for which he was derided & not until after his death but low & behold it really is real. The Buckminster Fullerene!

___Fuller also describes gravity & it's effects under this tetra- volume system & as far as this thread is a judge, this too is ripe for ridicule.

___I neither solicit nor appreciate flippancy in my inquiry. Have you read Fuller? Yes or no. If you have, what do you think of his idea's on gravity & tetrahedral space? What other gems did Bucky leave us that lay unexplored? Has the current field of quantum mechanics or string theory vindicated any of Fuller's writings?

[Turtle]

___Just a brief google of "Buckminster Fullers books" reveals Albert's opinion of Fuller:

http://www.banned-books.com/truth-seeker/1995archive/122_2/ts222a.html

 

Quotng Einstein to Fuller fron the above page: "Young man, you amaze me. I cannot conceive of anything I have ever done, having the slightest practical application." :rolleyes:

[Turtle]

____The horse lives I tell you; by this quote from the Wikpedia article on Fuller, the horse is iron.

The English writer, playwright, and philosopher John Dryden wrote something quite relevant to the pioneering forays of Fuller still to be brought to full result: "We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

 

PS I just learned from this article that what I call "minimalist multifunctionism" in the lounge thread, Fuller called "ephemeralization". Sweet serendipity! :rolleyes:

[UncleAl]

The simple fact is, Fuller used his geometric tetra volume math to predict a fourth state of carbon for which he was derided & not until after his death but low & behold it really is real. The Buckminster Fullerine!

Fuller made no comments on chemistry. C60's discoverers Kroto and Smalley enjoyed the "AHA!" of a soccerball. That C60 was a geodesic dome came later. C60 is buckminsterfullerene.

 

http://www.harvardsciencereview.org/Issues/pdfsspring2000/pages61to63.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Kroto

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Smalley

[Turtle]

Fuller made no comments on chemistry. C60's discoverers Kroto and Smalley enjoyed the "AHA!" of a soccerball. That C60 was a geodesic dome came later. C60 is buckminsterfullerene.

 

http://www.harvardsciencereview.org/Issues/pdfsspring2000/pages61to63.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Kroto

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Smalley

 

I have started reading the first link & this is interesting paragraph so far:

"...the three simple crystal structures that

molecules form. The others are simple

cubic (as the name implies, only a cube

with an atom at each vertex of the

cube) and body-centered cubic (a cube

with an atom at each vertex and one in

the center of the cube). Face-centered

cubic is the most densely packed because

in addition to the atom at each

vertex, there is also an atom in the center

of each face (4)...

___Whether Fuller explicity commented on chemistry I can not attest; I read the two books of his on synergy some decades ago. Nonetheless, as Kroto and Smalley invoked Fuller, how may he have influenced them? What familiarity did they have with Fuller's synergetics? I included the quote from the Harvord article because even though it is couched in cubic coordinate terms, Fuller's tensgrity & tetrahedral coordinate terms better accomadate the platonic solids than do the cubic. As I understand it, all but one of the Platonic solids is constructed of an integral number of tetrahedrons & this is not the case for the Platonic solids divided into cubes.

___Reading more. :rolleyes:

[Turtle]

___Al's second link is a biography of Kroto & makes no mention of Fuller;no evidence is not evidence.

___The third link is a short bio of Smalley, likewise with no mention of Fuller. He appears to still live though, so maybe we ask him? Also of note, Samlleys bio also credits a third with the Fullerene discovery:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Curl

 

___His bio is short & no Fuller mention; seems he's alive.

___One of my stray thoughts is how different is a Calibi-Yau shape expressed in Fuller's tetra volumes as opposed to the usual cubic volume? :)

[Turtle]

___Today I found an online edition of SYNERGETICS, Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking by R. Buckminster Fullerin collaboration with E. J. Applewhite

First Published by Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. 1975, 1979.

 

A quote from the "Operational mathematics" section:

811.04 You can "draw a line" only on the surface of some system. All systems divide Universe into insideness and outsideness. Systems are finite. Validity favors neither one side of the line nor the other. Every time we draw a line operationally upon a system, it returns upon itself. The line always divides a whole system's unit area surface into two areas, each equally valid as unit areas. Operational geometry invalidates all bias.

 

___Find it all here:

http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/synergetics.html

 

___I continue to invite your posts on Fuller; to the young people, have you even heard of him? To the rest, have you ever read him? If not, why? If so, do you find his work cogent? More to read! :)