"They asked,'Why houses in the round?'
Why make them square? said he.
But more, why tie your thoughts at all,
To round, or square. Or old geometry,
That's dead and strange to all reality.
For Universe is life and motion.
There's more of form and energy
Than of material things we see.
We must think comprehensively."
Why tie your thoughts at all, To round or square.
... the totality of a problem.
"The primary modus operandi of his mind causes him to see the whole of anything before he begins to analyze its parts."
In Fuller's eyes the first step would be to break away altogether from existing concepts so that he could start afresh in hope of reaching a more comprehensive solution.
Begin again from the very beginning. Let no old thought intrude, however hallowed by time.
Fuller's habitual exercise of comprehensive thought.
Let imagination spring from a real, broad base. To be truly comprehensive it must consist of "the totality of human experience".
Fuller's method of comprehensive thought is to go behind the 'known' theory and begin once more at the experimentally informed beginning, being careful to avoid distraction by scientific dogma, mind alert to examine fresh approaches and to formulate new interpretations of what men thought they understood before.
Intuitively, the fabric of thought is spun between a complex of points as it inventories...
Igloos are heat efficient and size efficient.
Geodesics is the opposite of an apex based, polarized dome. Geodesics are non-polarized and force-distributing.
racing towards the forever of the future.
Tensegrity= conservation of material resources + conservation of time. Conserves materials, fewer time and fewer workers.
Fuller's breakthroughs reveal force patterns of universal application in what we have become accustomed to think of as so many different fields of sciences.
Fuller's thought stream is characterized by
Tensile Integrity (Tensegrity) means continuity in pattern of tension forces throughout the structure. Tension is relied on more, compression less. More pull, less push & therefore greater use of what is best in structural materials: their strength to resist pull.
An inventor is his own lexicographer
Fuller... searches out the total of reality in terms of the dynamics of universe.
As Fuller taught, he also listened. As he listened, he translated. As he translated, the scope of his teaching grew. The effect was regenerative as the teacher's mind responded to the expanding thought pattern of the student therefore...'positive feed-back' the process by which one idea fed into his mind from any observed or translated experience of man generates a family of related ideas from which a broader generalization of the beginning idea emerges....
Direct feed-back and gestation of a mind, free from formal knowledge limitations. Reason suggests it is this freedom which affords to his mind the increased potential for regenerative action.
forward-looking Japan.
the striking simplicity of componentation.
[tensegrity is] the ascendency of tension to the throne occupied for so long by King Compression is high drama. At long last, builders can begin to realize on the tension potential of a dynamic universe. And it is a universe whose destiny is shaped by the invisible tension network which holds the planets to their celestial orbits. What a pleasing harmony of nature Fuller found in this discovery of a geometrical network of tension that can hold a building erect.
...Fuller's ultimate preoccupation was with education, not profits. The patents, when royalties came, were being used to spread knowledge of the inventions and the gain to others in using them...