Buckminster Fuller

[Pyrotex]

Hello?

Hi there. You may not know this, but I am a Bucky fan.

Yes. In fact, I have personally attended one of his lectures back in around 1975 or so.

I even asked him a question (which I have since forgotten) and he answered it.

How cool is that.

I managed to read through "Spaceship Earth" but it was a rough ride.

Synergistics is just too too too intimidating right now. :doh:

Maybe later.

But don't let that stop you from saying great things about Bucky!!!

[Turtle]

Hello?

Hi there. You may not know this, but I am a Bucky fan.

Yes. In fact, I have personally attended one of his lectures back in around 1975 or so.

I even asked him a question (which I have since forgotten) and he answered it.

How cool is that.

I managed to read through "Spaceship Earth" but it was a rough ride.

Synergistics is just too too too intimidating right now. :)

Maybe later.

But don't let that stop you from saying great things about Bucky!!!

 

Hello? :D I am starting to wonder if anyone will ever have time to play with Bucky 'n me. :hyper: One minor correction, the too too too intimidator is not named Synergistics, but rather Synergetics; subtitled Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking. No less intimidating or rough a ride I suppose. :eek2:

 

Shall I try another call-out? Shall I use sugar or vinegar this time? Both? Neither? Just what the heck is 'geometry of thinking' anyway, and if I knew would I not be having this problem of getting others to think about it too? :eek_big: Alrighty thens; don't click here if you know the answer. :D

[Moontanman]

Turtle, I read it, it's been a long time since a felt that stupid. I had the feeling of trying to understand some sort of alien religion based on a geometry of another universe. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you but attempting to fight a nuclear war armed with a wooden spear isn't my usual idea of a fair fight. It really left me feeling totally inadequate :eek_big:

[freeztar]

Turtle, I read it, it's been a long time since a felt that stupid. I had the feeling of trying to understand some sort of alien religion based on a geometry of another universe. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you but attempting to fight a nuclear war armed with a wooden spear isn't my usual idea of a fair fight. It really left me feeling totally inadequate :eek_big:

 

I know what you mean.

 

But really, it's not the concepts that are hard to get, but rather the translating that must take place. I'm going to give it a go one of these days when I'm sitting around with nothing to do.

[Moontanman]

I know what you mean. :hyper:

 

But really, it's not the concepts that are hard to get, but rather the translating that must take place. I'm going to give it a go one of these days when I'm sitting around with nothing to do.

 

Yeah, I think it's familiarity coupled with the seemingly obtuse that gets to me. Bucky boy must have had a mind far more twisted than mine if he could apply those concepts in the way put forward in those pages. I'll not give up but I may have to take it in very small bites to get the basics down. maybe Bucky was expanding his mind artificially when he wrote it :eek_big:

Turtle, do you feel you have a good understanding of this?

[Turtle]

Yeah, I think it's familiarity coupled with the seemingly obtuse that gets to me. Bucky boy must have had a mind far more twisted than mine if he could apply those concepts in the way put forward in those pages. I'll not give up but I may have to take it in very small bites to get the basics down. maybe Bucky was expanding his mind artificially when he wrote it

Turtle, do you feel you have a good understanding of this?

:D

 

Good understanding? Heavens no! Twisted mind is an understatement, but that's only a goad for me to untangle it. :D

In simple terms, no, he wasn't high on drugs. :eek_big: :hyper:

 

Without reference to any particular section of Synergetics, there is one principle of Fuller's that I do understand geometrically if not (yet) intuitively. To whit, the division of space tetrahedrally rather than cubically. This is the very basis of Fuller's geometry and while the simple geometric conversion from one system to another is rather straightforward, carrying it out in a translational manner for systems already described in cubic space is quite the horse of a different color not in my equine vocabulary. :eek2: :)

 

I have used some of Fuller's ideas in this regard to develop a (new?) kind of graph, and it is just this kind of first understanding the principles and then applying them to current problems that I think is the value in pursuing Synergetics. Fuller knew he didn't know it all, and his tombstone makes this clear with its 'Call me Trimtab' epitaph. Bucky is happy to gently steer us over tortuous ground to a different point of view, and leave us to voice our own impressions from there. :cup:

 

PS This is about as close to a Beginning you can get in Synergetics; I recommend starting here: >> 100.00 SYNERGY

[Pyrotex]

Tell you what, Turtle, my armor-backed friend,

I will read Synergetics for 1 (one) hour a week, and report my reactions (if any) here.

Pyro the Proboscoid

[Turtle]

Tell you what, Turtle, my armor-backed friend,

I will read Synergetics for 1 (one) hour a week, and report my reactions (if any) here.

Pyro the Proboscoid

 

 

I am overjoyed at your Proboscoidatudinality! :hihi: If you post which section you plan to read in, I'll read along too so we're on the same page. :doh:

 

Here's the online version I've been using again: >> R. Buckminster Fuller's SYNERGETICS

 

Maybe if I get obsessed enough I'll skip across the great Columbia River to Portland and pick up a hard copy at the world-renowned Powell's Books.

 

I am really jazzed!! Muchas gracias Nester!

[Thunderbird]

I don’t know if you discussed this yet, I haven't read though the whole thread and links. I will when I get time, being a big fan of the buckmister. One aspect of this geometry is how it applies to organizations of complexity of morphology particularly how it could be applied to the organization of single cells into complex animals in an evolutionary process. We know that the intracellular structure that connects cells follows these principals of geometry of structure but what I am interested in is the dynamic principles leading up to these structures. Have you discussed this following principal.

 

 

Tensegrity is the exhibited strength that results "when push and pull have a win-win relationship with each other". Tension is continuous and compression discontinuous, such that continuous pull is balanced by equivalently discontinuous pushing forces.

Buckminster Fuller explained that these fundamental phenomena were not opposites, but complements that could always be found together. Tensegrity is the name for a synergy between co-existing pairs of fundamental "/wiki/Physical_law"; of push and pull, and compression and tension, or repulsion and attraction.

It should be noted that Webster's dictionary has simplified the collective meaning as "all things working together". And, while this may be seen as an "over-simplification" in lieu of the technical underpinnings the accompany this concept, the phrase is legitimate in the sense of this concept's universal applicability. The phrase aptly covers the "spirit" of the two words used in the creation of this "neologism", in that the breadth & depth in its inherent meaning (semantic carriage)is extensive and multi-disciplinary.

[Turtle]

I don’t know if you discussed this yet, I haven't read though the whole thread and links. I will when I get time, being a big fan of the buckmister. One aspect of this geometry is how it applies to organizations of complexity of morphology particularly how it could be applied to the organization of single cells into complex animals in an evolutionary process. We know that the intracellular structure that connects cells follows these principals of geometry of structure but what I am interested in is the dynamic principles leading up to these structures. Have you discussed this following principal.

 

Welcome aboard T-Bird. I'm re-reading the thread too. I mentioned 'tensegrity' in post #60, but no specific reference to Synergetics. In post #66 there is something on-point regarding structure of the flavor you mention. Here's the entire section on Tensegrity in Fuller's own words: >> 700.00 TENSEGRITY Mind you it is predicated in earlier sections of Synergetics.

Now off to find more........

 

Somebody stop me! :hihi:

[Turtle]

Fuller appears to describe a singularity here, oui/no?

 

812.06 Under the most primitive pre-time-size conditions the surface of a sphere may be exactly subdivided into the four spherical triangles of the spherical tetrahedron, each of whose surface corners are 120-degree angles, and whose "edges" have central angles of 109 28'. The area of a surface of a sphere is also exactly equal to the area of four great circles of the sphere. Ergo, the area of a sphere's great circle equals the area of a spherical triangle of that sphere's spherical tetrahedron: wherefore we have a circular area exactly equaling a triangular area, and we have avoided use of pi .

800.00 OPERATIONAL MATHEMATICS

 

Perhaps thinking of circular in terms of pi is one of our 'debilitating illusions?' Bucky says its so a few paragraphs later:

 

813.03 If, instead of drawing a one-square-foot circle on the ground__which means on the surface of the spherical Earth__we were to draw a square that is one foot on each side, we would have the same size local area as before: one square foot. A square as defined by Euclid is an area bound by a closed line of four equal-length edges and four equal and identical angles. By this definition, our little square, one foot to a side, that we have drawn on the ground is a closed line of four equal edges and equal angles. But this divides all Earth's surface into two areas, both of which are equally bound by four equal- length edges and four equal angles. Therefore, we have two squares: one little local one and one enormous one. And the little one's corners are approximately 90 degrees each, which makes the big square's corners approximately 270 degrees each. While you may not be familiar with such thinking, you are confronted with the results of a physical experiment, which inform you that you have been laboring under many debilitating illusions. ...

 

Somethings to think about...or not. :(

[modest]

812.06 Under the most primitive pre-time-size conditions the surface of a sphere may be exactly subdivided into the four spherical triangles of the spherical tetrahedron, each of whose surface corners are 120-degree angles, and whose "edges" have central angles of 109 28'. The area of a surface of a sphere is also exactly equal to the area of four great circles of the sphere. Ergo, the area of a sphere's great circle equals the area of a spherical triangle of that sphere's spherical tetrahedron: wherefore we have a circular area exactly equaling a triangular area, and we have avoided use of pi .

 

Ummm... how would you solve the surface of a spherical tetrahedron without pi? How would you solve any spherical triangle without pi? :(

 

~modest

[Turtle]

Ummm... how would you solve the surface of a spherical tetrahedron without pi? How would you solve any spherical triangle without pi? :(

 

~modest

 

That explanation is in sections of Synergetics that precede the bit I brought forward. I'm not having much luck instigating conversations on beginning concepts, so I thought I'd jump to a more widely discussed concept such as the singularity in the hopes we might get around to the beginning. :hihi: (Little cosmological humor there. :hihi:)

 

R. Buckminster Fuller's SYNERGETICS

 

Anyway, welcome to Bucky's world Modest. :hihi: If you choose to ride a while, buckle up. :hihi: :hihi:

[Turtle]

Just dropping back in to characterize my reply [to] Señor Modesto. :hihi: I was not trying to be flip about the pi thing, rather I don't know exactly how one would solve any spherical triangle without pi, but I know that Bucky knows and that he explains it in Synergetics.

 

Keep in mind that these little things that Bucky knows and explains, have resulted in his invention of the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion map, structures unrecognized by his more luminary peers in structure of all things spatial. So, to my way of thinking there is no way to say that Fuller's geometry does not hold even more aha's! for physics and chemistry, both for you personally and the general scientific community. The 800 pound bull in the room is that to have any idea if or how this may be so, one has to know what Fuller says.

 

Nasty fat tetrahedral dilemma a'right! :(

 

PS I suspect, but don't know for sure, that using a tetrahedral space metric rather than a cubic space metric is 'how' you don't use pi. :hihi: Please help me O B 1. :hihi: This online version of Synergetics is my only current source, and I consider Synergetics Fuller's seminal work. At the very least, it is a primer to his geometry. >> http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/toc/toc.html:turtle:

[modest]

I was not trying to be flip about the pi thing, rather I don't know exactly how one would solve any spherical triangle without pi, but I know that Bucky knows and that he explains it in Synergetics.

 

On the contrary, your reply was helpful in that I didn't realize the explanation preceded the portion you quoted. I'm looking at the spherical triangle section of Synergetics now and all I can say is... yikes!

 

I think he speaks a different language than me. Almost like he invented a new geometry that needs understood before a translation is possible. :( For instance: "A piece of paper or a blackboard is a system having insideness and outsideness."

 

I just get a bit confused when I read something like that :hihi:

 

~modest

[Turtle]

On the contrary, your reply was helpful in that I didn't realize the explanation preceded the portion you quoted. I'm looking at the spherical triangle section of Synergetics now and all I can say is... yikes!

 

I think he speaks a different language than me. Almost like he invented a new geometry that needs understood before a translation is possible. :( For instance: "A piece of paper or a blackboard is a system having insideness and outsideness."

 

I just get a bit confused when I read something like that :hihi:

 

~modest

 

:hihi: Secular blessings and deep genuflections in your general geodesic direction for taking the plunge right into the deep end. I can help a bit, but I'm only a polliwog myself. :hihi: Insideness/outsideness is indeed an element of Fuller's geometry that is no small matter of words, but rather I get something of the flavor of those extra dimensions so much of physics likes to bandy about.

 

Here's an early, if not first, mention of insideness/outsideness in Fuller's Synergetics. :hihi: >> 100.00 SYNERGY

100.20 Scenario of the Child

100.201 Our scenario, titled "Experimentally Certified Scientific Proofs," opens with a child standing outdoors, glancing all around, pausing to look more intently at an aggregate of generalized somethings, and finally focusing upon a special case something:

a point-to-ability

a surface of something

a substance having "insideness and outsideness." The smallest thing we know of__the atom__has a withinness nucleus and one or more withoutness electrons.

a big something fastened to the Earth ...

[Turtle]

...I think he speaks a different language than me. Almost like he invented a new geometry that needs understood before a translation is possible. :doh: For instance: "A piece of paper or a blackboard is a system having insideness and outsideness."

 

I just get a bit confused when I read something like that

 

~modest

 

Here's some of what Bucky says in Synergetics on the topic of his language. >>

 

... 250.30 Remoteness of Synergetics Vocabulary

250.301 When one makes discoveries that, to the best of one’s knowledge and wide inquiry, seem to be utterly new, problems arise regarding the appropriate nomenclature and description of what is being discovered as well as problems of invention relating to symbolic economy and lucidity. As a consequence, I found myself inventing an increasingly larger descriptive vocabulary, which evolved as the simplest, least ambiguous method of recounting the paraphernalia and strategies of the live scenario of all my relevant experiences.

250.31 For many years, my vocabulary was utterly foreign to the semantics of all the other sciences. I drew heavily on the dictionary for good and unambiguous terms to identify the multiplying nuances of my discoveries. In the meanwhile, the whole field of science was evolving rapidly in the new fields of quantum mechanics, electronics, and nuclear exploration, inducing a gradual evolution in scientific language. In recent years, I find my experiential mathematics vocabulary in a merging traffic pattern with the language trends of the other sciences, particularly physics. Often, however, the particular new words chosen by others would identify phenomena other than that which I identify with the same words. As the others were unaware of my offbeat work, I had to determine for myself which of the phenomena involved had most logical claim to the names involved. I always conceded to the other scientists, of course (unbeknownst to them); when they seemed to have prior or more valid claims, I would then inventor select appropriate but unused names for the phenomena I had discovered. But I held to my own claim when I found it to be eminently warranted or when the phenomena of other claimants were ill described by that term. For example, quantum mechanics came many years after I did to employ the term spin. The physicists assured me that their use of the word did not involve any phenomena that truly spun. Spin was only a convenient word for accounting certain unique energy behaviors and investments. My use of the term was to describe a direct observation of an experimentally demonstrable, inherent spinnability and unique magnitudes of rotation of an actually spinning phenomenon whose next fractional rotations were induced by the always co-occurring, generalized, a priori, environmental conditions within which the spinnable phenomenon occurred. This was a case in which I assumed that I held a better claim to the scientific term spin. In recent years, spin is beginning to be recognized by the physicists themselves as also inadvertently identifying a conceptually spinnable phenomenon__in fact, the same fundamental phenomenon I had identified much earlier when I first chose to use the word spin to describe that which was experimentally disclosed as being inherently spinnable. There appears to be an increasing convergence of scientific explorations in general, and of epistemology and semantics in particular, with my own evolutionary development. ...

100.00 SYNERGY