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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you're welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb. Hey I'm Christian Seger,

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Speaker 1: and in this episode we're gonna talk about the work

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Speaker 1: of our Buckminster Fuller. Yeah, this guy was a real visionary,

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Speaker 1: primarily influential between the nineteen thirties and fifties. You may

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Speaker 1: have heard of him as a maybe an engineer or

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Speaker 1: a designer, or sometimes as an architect. He really wasn't

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Speaker 1: any of those things. Technically, he didn't have the training necessarily.

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Speaker 1: But what he was was a major symbol for counterculture

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Speaker 1: and influencing people to be creative. I think that's fair

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Speaker 1: to say. Yeah, yeah, as we researched him, and this

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Speaker 1: was a guy that I didn't know a lot about.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up seeing the diodestic Dome. You

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Speaker 1: know some of the edific doum houses near where I lived.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't know that. Well there was one.

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Speaker 1: I say that as if there was a whole there,

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Speaker 1: but there was one up on the hill and there

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Speaker 1: where where my my parents lived. I always tried to

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Speaker 1: imagine what's going on, and yeah, yeah, well I think

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Speaker 1: I must have heard of him the first time when

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Speaker 1: I went to Epcot Center, because I believe that the

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Speaker 1: what do they call it Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center

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Speaker 1: is is a geodesic sphere. I believe it's based on

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Speaker 1: the principles. I don't think that Fuller was involved in

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Speaker 1: constructing it, but but yeah, but certainly the gudesic dome,

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Speaker 1: the guidestic sphere serves as a symbol for him. It's

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Speaker 1: this uh uh, the inspiration of what can be done

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Speaker 1: with engineering and ingenuity. Yeah, and and I think that's

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Speaker 1: very very stuff to blow your mind in terms of

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Speaker 1: how much this show has covered retro futurist kind of

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Speaker 1: aesthetics or engineering principles, ideas imagination in the past. Yeah, yeah, totally.

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Speaker 1: I mean, and so much of what's appealing about Fuller

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Speaker 1: is that he the audacity of some of his ideas,

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Speaker 1: Like some of the other visionaries that we've we've touched

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Speaker 1: on the show before and we'll touch on in the future.

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Speaker 1: You know, he really he really thought outside the box.

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Speaker 1: To use a very cliche term, he didn't he didn't

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Speaker 1: have all the filters that that that a lot of

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Speaker 1: us have been trying to envision what we can do

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Speaker 1: with technology and what the future could consist of. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and my take on this, So I went into this

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Speaker 1: episode being a fan of our Buck Muster Fuller being

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Speaker 1: very excited about, in particular the Cloud nine ideas which

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about, which are basically flying cities. Um and

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Speaker 1: I had even written about him for How Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: before and then really doing a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: research about him, and in particular there's an article uh

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Speaker 1: in The New Yorker that came out in two thousand

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Speaker 1: eight that's called the di Maxian Man, and it's by

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Speaker 1: a woman named Elizabeth Colbert. Uh not Colbert. I believe

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Speaker 1: it's Colbert because it's got okay, but um uh, it

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Speaker 1: really highlighted his life beyond just the you know, the

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Speaker 1: the big ideas that this guy came up with, and

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Speaker 1: I think that of him now more along the lines

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Speaker 1: of this generation of men who were big thinkers, but

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Speaker 1: we're also sort of con artists in a way. Joe

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Speaker 1: is not going to be delighted to know Joe. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for those of you who know are our third host,

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Speaker 1: Joe is a a big buck Mr. Fuller fan has

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Speaker 1: also written about him. But but I'm gonna try to

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Speaker 1: convince him. Hopefully he'll listen to this and I'll change

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Speaker 1: his mind. So why don't we start just talking about that.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna call him Bucky Buckminster. I think is gonna

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Speaker 1: be a little bit too much, and Mr Fuller seems

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Speaker 1: formal for where we're at, So let's call him Bucky.

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Speaker 1: That's what his friends and family called him. Uh. He

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Speaker 1: was born on July twelve in Milton, Massachusetts, which I'm

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Speaker 1: familiar with from the Boston area. Uh. And he died

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Speaker 1: on July one, in nine three in l a um.

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Speaker 1: He this is like right out of the gate like this,

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Speaker 1: This story of him as a little kid, I think

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Speaker 1: perfectly streets what kind of a human being he grew

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Speaker 1: up into. So he was nearsighted as a child, so

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Speaker 1: was I. I stared wearing glasses when I was five,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't until he was actually fitted with glasses,

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Speaker 1: like his parents convinced him, Hey, you need glasses. He

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Speaker 1: didn't believe that the world wasn't blurry. He thought the

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Speaker 1: whole world was blurry because that's how he saw it.

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Speaker 1: So I know I presented that as a double negative.

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Speaker 1: So he thought the world was blurry, and when they

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Speaker 1: said to him, no, you have something wrong with your eyes,

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Speaker 1: he didn't believe them until somebody actually put glasses on

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Speaker 1: his head and he realized, Oh, this is how I'm

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Speaker 1: supposed to see the world. And I think that's a

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Speaker 1: perfect metaphor for this guy's life as it goes on. Basically,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I see some of that in my my

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Speaker 1: own toddler. To say that he's gonna, you know, grow

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Speaker 1: up to be such an iconic figure, but I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be surper. But there's a stubbornness at times to to

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Speaker 1: a kid. You know, they think they know how the

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Speaker 1: world works, and they don't. They don't accept the counter

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Speaker 1: argument that you present them with. But but maybe that's

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Speaker 1: part of a Fuller's vibe. And why I resonate so

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Speaker 1: much is because he kept that that kind of childish

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Speaker 1: vision and assuredness. Yeah, yeah, I think you might be right.

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Speaker 1: Well here's another thing. Tell me if your son does

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Speaker 1: this yet? Okay, okay buck. Mr Fuller constantly collected throughout

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Speaker 1: his entire life scrap books of his letters, articles, everything

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Speaker 1: as a record of his life. This included receipts for

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Speaker 1: everything like dry cleaning, bills and we have all of

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Speaker 1: this today. He actually referred to it later on as

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Speaker 1: the Dymaxion Chronophile. He loved coming up with weird names

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Speaker 1: for things. Now that sounds a lot more impressive until

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Speaker 1: you realize it has like laundry receipts in it. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so is um is your son keeping a Dymaxian chronofile.

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Speaker 1: He has a box of rocks. He comes home every

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Speaker 1: day with like six different rocks in his pockets. So

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Speaker 1: sort of an early early stage. Well, I could see

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Speaker 1: them keeping that in an archive someday, and that's what

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Speaker 1: they did with with Fuller. Actually, uh, it weighs forty

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Speaker 1: five tons this guy's archives. So I used to work

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Speaker 1: in an academic library and work a lot with archivists

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Speaker 1: and special collections, and forty five tons is a lot.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot of material. It's the largest personal archive

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Speaker 1: that's currently at Stanford University. So I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: it's basically everything this guy ever wrote down to paper

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Speaker 1: he thought was going to be important in some way

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Speaker 1: and kept a copy of it um And and it's, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's just kind of fascinating, Like I think about other

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Speaker 1: figures throughout history who even at a young age, were

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Speaker 1: convinced that whatever they had was going to be so

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Speaker 1: important that one day mankind was going to need to

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Speaker 1: go look back upon these papers, you know, even when

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Speaker 1: you're a child. Theodore Roosevelt was a guy like this,

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Speaker 1: kept kept a log of pretty much everything he did. Um.

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Speaker 1: And that also, I think there's a certain amount of

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Speaker 1: narcissism that comes into play there, I would think, so,

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Speaker 1: I mean, and yeah, we definitely see that with with Fuller,

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Speaker 1: and that he's from a from an early point keeping

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Speaker 1: keeping a file, a holy document of what he is

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Speaker 1: setting out with a chief. Yeah. Yeah, so you know,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the basics of what we have of him

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Speaker 1: as a child. But like many people and his family,

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Speaker 1: mostly men, Uh, he went to Harvard University. Unfortunately, halfway

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Speaker 1: through his freshman year, he took his tuition money and

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Speaker 1: he took it out of the bank and he said,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to use this to entertain chorus girls in Manhattan. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Story goes that Harvard wasn't pleased about this. He was expelled.

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Speaker 1: A year later, they reinstated him, and then he got

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Speaker 1: thrown out again. We don't know why. Maybe it was

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Speaker 1: chorus girls again who knows. But the gist of it

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Speaker 1: is that Bucking never graduated from any college. He doesn't

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Speaker 1: have a degree in engineering. He um, he really you know,

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Speaker 1: from what it sounds like, he was a book learning man,

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Speaker 1: you know, um, which is which is fine, but I think,

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Speaker 1: like when you see some of the large scale projects

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Speaker 1: he was hired for later on based on his hotspa,

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Speaker 1: it makes you, it makes you wonder. Um. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: so after this whole Harvard thing collapsed for him, he

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Speaker 1: went on, he took a meatpacking job, then he joined

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Speaker 1: the Navy. When he was in the Navy, this is

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Speaker 1: when he really started his whole like invention kick, right.

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Speaker 1: So he uh, he invented this device to rescue pilots

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Speaker 1: that had like you know, crashed at sea. And um,

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Speaker 1: what what ended up happening was this device often just

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Speaker 1: flipped them upside down and dunked them head first into

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Speaker 1: the water and held them under water. Right. Well you

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Speaker 1: know it it expedites the process, but it's just not

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Speaker 1: in the way, not the way I think the Navy

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Speaker 1: was looking at. Um. And then you know, after World

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Speaker 1: War rather during World War One, he got married and

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Speaker 1: he started a business with his wife's father, His wife's

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Speaker 1: father was an architect, and so I think that this

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Speaker 1: is where he you know, picked up a lot of

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Speaker 1: his nol but that the two of them started this

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Speaker 1: business together where they manufactured books out of wood shavings.

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Speaker 1: And I was trying to imagine what this even meant.

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Speaker 1: It's it's one thing to read that as a sentence

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Speaker 1: in an article. I don't know what does that mean.

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Speaker 1: They took the wood shavings and they they like pulped

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Speaker 1: them down. I guess it certainly makes me think of

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Speaker 1: sort of you know, homemade paper craft nowadays. But well,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine. But the company went almost bankrupt

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Speaker 1: and uh then somebody bought it from the two of them.

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Speaker 1: In so at this point, this is this is an

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Speaker 1: interesting point in Buckey's life. Uh, and by different accounts

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Speaker 1: from what I read, Uh, it's acknowledged differently. Even stories

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Speaker 1: say that, like their interviews with his daughter saying this

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Speaker 1: what I'm about to tell you is is probably fictional. Basically,

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Speaker 1: he comes to a crossroads in his life. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, literally, like he his daughter was born. Um,

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Speaker 1: he claimed that at the time he became really depressed

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Speaker 1: because he didn't have a job. He couldn't provide for

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Speaker 1: his family. So he he was on a walk, and

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Speaker 1: he was walking alongside Lake Michigan, and he had suicidal thoughts.

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Speaker 1: And so some versions of this story say that he

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Speaker 1: claims suddenly he was suspended several feet above the air,

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Speaker 1: above the ground rather in the air, and saw light

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Speaker 1: and he heard a voice say, you do not have

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Speaker 1: the right to eliminate yourself. And then it said you

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Speaker 1: do not belong to you, You belong to the universe. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so I presumably he was set back down and

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Speaker 1: he had this epiphany that this was a sign that

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Speaker 1: he should start a lifelong experiment uh, where basically he

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Speaker 1: should figure out how one person himself could benefit all

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Speaker 1: of humanity, could change all of humanity for the better.

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Speaker 1: And this is where he really started hitting the books, right,

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Speaker 1: hanging out in library, he's compiling notes and really trying

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Speaker 1: to figure out how he can transform the world. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and here again, so he's keeping like documentation of all

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Speaker 1: of this stuff. Right. So, rather than you get a

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Speaker 1: job and support his family, he goes to the library.

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Speaker 1: He refers to himself in the third person as guinea

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Speaker 1: pig b presumably be is Bucky uh and he starts

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Speaker 1: writing this booklet that he called The for d Timelock.

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Speaker 1: Uh and uh. From what I understood, it's apparently quite

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Speaker 1: hard to read. It's it's a the reviews rather of

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Speaker 1: it where that it was you know, the pros was dense,

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Speaker 1: it was it barely made any sense. But essentially it's

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Speaker 1: a diet tribe about how we were failing at that

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Speaker 1: time in how we constructed modern homes and how we

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Speaker 1: were basically like real estate and construction. Um. And he

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Speaker 1: felt like this was this was how he was going

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Speaker 1: to impact human He was going to change production basically

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Speaker 1: of home life. And this comes along at a at

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Speaker 1: a at a key point too, because we're seeing in

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Speaker 1: this industrialized world, we're seeing these uh, these sort of

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Speaker 1: cookie cutter designs roll out in the world around us,

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Speaker 1: but we're also seeing futuristic visions of what's possible showing

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Speaker 1: up in our our science fiction and advertising and uh

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Speaker 1: and and and Bucky's ideas kind of serve as a

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Speaker 1: as a bridge to that. Yeah, I think that's important

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Speaker 1: to remember is that, like there were a lot of

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Speaker 1: people at that time who were having amazing imaginative ideas

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Speaker 1: really that you know, I think that um formed what

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Speaker 1: we think of today as sort of our science fiction

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Speaker 1: fantasy uh conventions, I guess, right, like the aesthetics behind that.

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Speaker 1: And Fuller, Bucky rather sort of thought of himself not

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Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't in the fictional space. He saw

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Speaker 1: this as no, that this is how we're going to

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Speaker 1: change the real world, no matter how unrealistic it was

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Speaker 1: or even as we'll find out later that he came

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Speaker 1: up with ideas for things that hadn't been invented yet.

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Speaker 1: So his excuse for why he couldn't construct things was, well,

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Speaker 1: the materials aren't here. Yeah, sorry, this doesn't actually exist,

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Speaker 1: so I can't make it yet. Yeah. I mean he was,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of people at the time, riding that

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Speaker 1: wave of technological optimism where it seemed that all these

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Speaker 1: things would definitely come to fruition and uh and so

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Speaker 1: he's just sort of dreaming, dreaming ahead of that wave crashing. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

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Speaker 1: So i'd like before we get into the first of

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Speaker 1: his his large, uh you know, scale inventions, here's a

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Speaker 1: couple other notes about him, just so we've we've got

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Speaker 1: a framework of Buck Mr Fuller as a man. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: later on in his life, after he gained some notoriety.

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Speaker 1: He was an academic uh and reportedly he could lecture

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Speaker 1: for ten hours at a time. UH, and that if

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Speaker 1: you had class with him, they lasted from nine am

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Speaker 1: until five pm. And this was not like the kind

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Speaker 1: of like a seminar where you broke out in a

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Speaker 1: group sessions and you were interacting with your classmates. Fuller

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Speaker 1: spoke the entire time. He basically just shared at people

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Speaker 1: for eight to ten hours at a time. But he

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Speaker 1: was very charismatics. I presumably this is it's not as

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Speaker 1: dreary attend it's as much as ten hour lecture. I

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Speaker 1: get the impression that people weren't falling asleep, that it

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Speaker 1: was a spectacle to behold. Um. Of course, he believed

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Speaker 1: all the world's problems could be solved by technology. That's

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Speaker 1: basically the philosophy behind a lot of what he saw. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he also proposed a clear dome be constructed over Manhattan,

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Speaker 1: a tetra head drawn suburb in San Francisco Bay, and

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Speaker 1: he patented a scheme for an underwater city. So he's

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Speaker 1: really thinking about I guess, like what we would call

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Speaker 1: today urban studies, right like he was, he was thinking

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Speaker 1: about cities as microcosms of people and how we could

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Speaker 1: put them elsewhere, whether that be the sky, underwater. I

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Speaker 1: don't know why Manhattan would need a dome, but I

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Speaker 1: think this is something that's caught on in fiction because

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Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen it in a lot of

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Speaker 1: other Yeah, it definitely shows up in Futurama. There's a

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Speaker 1: really at some point the city of New York is

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Speaker 1: uh is covered in a dome. I don't recall exactly why,

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Speaker 1: but but it does happen. Yeah, maybe like acid rain

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Speaker 1: or something like that, although I don't know that that

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Speaker 1: was what his thinking was. Um, here's another interesting thing

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Speaker 1: about him. So, while he did believe that technology was

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Speaker 1: the you know, saving grace for all of humanity, he

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Speaker 1: didn't believe in evolution. What he actually thought were that

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Speaker 1: human beings had come from another part of the universe,

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Speaker 1: like another planet, uh, totally as we are right now,

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Speaker 1: and populated the planet Earth like somebody dropped us off here. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He also thought that dolphins were descendants from these like

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Speaker 1: proto humans that came to Earth and that they had

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Speaker 1: like become seafaring proto humans and eventually turned into dolphins.

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Speaker 1: I bet he. I wonder if you ever met up

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Speaker 1: with John C. Lily. They definitely lived at the same time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you were telling me about Lily earlier, So I

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Speaker 1: think that, Um, he sounds like somebody who should definitely

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Speaker 1: talk about on the show, which I think we should

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Speaker 1: do a full episode on literally at some point, because

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Speaker 1: he's a fascinating dude and we've only we've only really

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Speaker 1: touched on some of his uh crazier ideas here on

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Speaker 1: the show in the past, and there's a lot more

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Speaker 1: to him than that. Well, well, we'll save that for

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Speaker 1: another episode. But here's the last thing I'll give you

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Speaker 1: on Bucky. This is one of my favorites before we

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Speaker 1: get into the diet Dymaxian inventions that he had. Okay, Um,

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Speaker 1: for many years, Bucky had a very specific diet and

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Speaker 1: there are only a few things he would eat and

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Speaker 1: they consisted of prunes, tea, steak, and jello. Those were

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Speaker 1: like his four food groups. Prunes, tea, steak, and jello. Wow. Well,

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Speaker 1: I I think you'd have to put a lot of

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Speaker 1: different things into that jello to really make that diet work.

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Speaker 1: But I'm trying to imagine. I know that there's a

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Speaker 1: recipe and I may be taking us off track here,

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Speaker 1: But isn't there something like where you there's like a

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Speaker 1: mold of jello where you embed other food products inside

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Speaker 1: the jello, like and suspended animation. Yeah, like a little

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Speaker 1: bits of fruit. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, But in his case,

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Speaker 1: it would just be like prunes and and steak, like

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Speaker 1: yeah yeah, he just had this one thing that he

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Speaker 1: would eat every day. Yeah yeah, yeah. I mean, because

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Speaker 1: he was very utilitarian, you want to make it as

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Speaker 1: simple as possible. Okay, So with this gives you an

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Speaker 1: idea of what kind of a person Fuller was he.

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Speaker 1: Like I said earlier, he liked to make up words

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Speaker 1: of his own. So this leads us to his favorite

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Speaker 1: word that he made up. But he didn't make it up, actually,

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Speaker 1: but it was made up maxian. Uh. There was a

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Speaker 1: consultant who was working to sell model homes and they

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Speaker 1: came up with it. And it's a mash of three

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Speaker 1: words that they thought sounded exciting at the time, dynamic

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Speaker 1: maximum and ion is good is good marketing maxion? Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'd buy that. But it's perfect for Fuller, right, because

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Speaker 1: so so many of these ideas are are about the

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Speaker 1: marketing of the dream, not so much about the realization

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Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, I think if he were alive today,

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Speaker 1: he would very much be like the kind of mad

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Speaker 1: men that would that would work in advertising or marketing

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Speaker 1: or just do a lot of Ted talks. May definitely

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Speaker 1: he would be a Ted talker for sure, You're right.

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Speaker 1: Uh so. So he took this word dymaxie and he

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Speaker 1: just applied it to a lot of his you know,

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Speaker 1: invention ideas. Um. The first one was the Dymaxion vehicle.

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Speaker 1: So this was a car that had three wheels, there

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Speaker 1: were two in the front, one in the back, and

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Speaker 1: instead of a rear view mirror, it had a periscope.

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Speaker 1: I tried imagining how that would work. So you're you

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Speaker 1: would like, what, lean over and put your eye in

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Speaker 1: the periscope to see behind you? I guess so. But

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Speaker 1: of course it's that's not really two different from what

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Speaker 1: we have now with the rear view video, right. Oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true. That's true. Yeah, I've never driven a car

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Speaker 1: with one of those before, but yeah, it works, you know,

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Speaker 1: ultimately not too different from a periscope. So I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: give him, I'm gonna give a break pass on that. Well,

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Speaker 1: apparently this car was really good for for like, you know,

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Speaker 1: odd parking maneuvers. So if you're the kind of person

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Speaker 1: who has trouble parallel parking, I think the Dymaxian vehicle

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Speaker 1: was for you, and it was apparently very good at

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Speaker 1: degree turns. Uh. But it caused a lot of controversy

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Speaker 1: when it was first introduced. The very first time you

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Speaker 1: put it out on the road in nine three, there

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Speaker 1: was so much hype and people were so surprised by

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Speaker 1: seeing it on the road that it caused gridlock. That

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Speaker 1: people just weren't driving because they were up staring at

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Speaker 1: this thing. Yeah, I can definitely understand. I mean I

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Speaker 1: I I feel like when I see a vehicle that's

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Speaker 1: particularly futuristic driving around town here in Atlanta, and it

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Speaker 1: throws me off for a minute and I almost wrecked

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Speaker 1: the car. Yeah. In fact, there's somebody near the office here.

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Speaker 1: I see him coming in and out of the Whole

364
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Speaker 1: Foods parking lot in some sort I don't even know

365
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Speaker 1: what you call them these days, but it has to

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Speaker 1: two wheels in the front and one in the back.

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Speaker 1: Really it's kind of vehicle. Oh, now I'm curious. You

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Speaker 1: know who we should ask about this? As the car

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Speaker 1: stuff guys, would I wonder, Yeah, yeah, I I even

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Speaker 1: considered asking them if they had already covered the Dymaxine vehicle.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they have or not, but I'm

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Speaker 1: sure Scott's heard of it before. Um So, Fuller basically

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Speaker 1: envisioned that this vehicle would go beyond the three wheel

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Speaker 1: model that he had built. He wanted it to fly.

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Speaker 1: He wanted basically, he wanted everything he made to fly.

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Speaker 1: That was kind of his thing. Um. But he he

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Speaker 1: thought it would be kind of like a duck the

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Speaker 1: way that it would take off, uh, And that it

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Speaker 1: would also be built in such a way so that

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Speaker 1: like when it was on land, it could travel on

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Speaker 1: the roughest roads, but then when there was terrain that

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Speaker 1: you couldn't necessarily get over with you know, the three

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Speaker 1: wheels on on the Dymaxine vehicle, it would just take

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Speaker 1: off and fly over the stuff. Um he. So here's

385
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Speaker 1: what happened with the Dymaxine vehicle. They built one prototype

386
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Speaker 1: and as this one that caused the grid block. I

387
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Speaker 1: believe three months after it was released, it crashed. The

388
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Speaker 1: driver was killed, the one of the passengers was seriously injured.

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Speaker 1: But later on and they determined. I believe it was

390
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Speaker 1: at like a World's Fair that this happened or something

391
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Speaker 1: similar to that, like one of these big exhibitions of technology. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they determined another car was found responsible for the accident,

393
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Speaker 1: and they only produced two more of these, and then

394
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Speaker 1: the whole thing was just put on hold because you know,

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Speaker 1: it's just it was again like many of his ideas,

396
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Speaker 1: it was a it was a cool idea, but it

397
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Speaker 1: wasn't exactly practical or functional. Yeah, as a as an

398
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Speaker 1: inspiration and as an argument, it totally works because it's

399
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Speaker 1: it's Bucky saying, Hey, why does a car have to

400
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Speaker 1: be this? Let's think outside of the timeline so far.

401
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Speaker 1: Let's think about what is what's possible, and not just

402
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Speaker 1: what we have to work with. But when you start actually,

403
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Speaker 1: you know, putting a tire to the road, Uh, it

404
00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:49,800
Speaker 1: doesn't always work out. And I imagine that like the

405
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Speaker 1: investors involved, you know, he must have had to have

406
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Speaker 1: he must have been a very charming man in order

407
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Speaker 1: to convince people to put their money into these projects. Um.

408
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Speaker 1: And so that leads us to the next Dymaxion invention,

409
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Speaker 1: which was the Dymaxion house. So that, like like the

410
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Speaker 1: car and some of the other stuff we're gonna see

411
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Speaker 1: you later on. He very much had this idea I

412
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Speaker 1: think of like everything being kind of like uh, what

413
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Speaker 1: we would refer to now as plug in play right right. Yeah,

414
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Speaker 1: you buy it and it's just right out of the box,

415
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Speaker 1: good to go. And so that's what he wanted this

416
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Speaker 1: house to be. It was something that you could erect

417
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Speaker 1: in one day, totally complete. Like I think furniture and

418
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Speaker 1: definitely appliances were all built into the structure and they

419
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Speaker 1: just sort of like unfold and be there. He called

420
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Speaker 1: it drudge y proof. I don't know what that necessarily

421
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Speaker 1: meant other than that, like maybe he thought it would

422
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Speaker 1: be aesthetically pleasing when the roll of building up. Yeah,

423
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Speaker 1: so I guess that's true. Yeah, I thought more of

424
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Speaker 1: that it was like the drudgery of everyday life, you

425
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Speaker 1: know that that there was something about the home that

426
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Speaker 1: would kind of put a little spring in your step. Well,

427
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:58,439
Speaker 1: I mean as as a homeown, right does like that

428
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 1: the home comes to you kind of broken, even if

429
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:03,240
Speaker 1: even if you had to build the damn thing, it's

430
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:06,400
Speaker 1: it's it's in a constant state of breaking. So this

431
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: is uh, and you're having to repair it and then

432
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:12,480
Speaker 1: so maybe the drudgery free home. It's just simply this this,

433
00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: like if you're microwave of breaks, you just buy a

434
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: new home. Yeah yeah, I think the complete modular home

435
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: is a complete insert. It's just if you're this one's broken,

436
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 1: well great, just tear tear the fresh strip off the

437
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 1: new one, plug it into your lot, and you're good

438
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:29,119
Speaker 1: to go. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's how he was thinking.

439
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: I mean, it only really made it to sketch stages

440
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 1: and at the beginning, what he envisioned was that there

441
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,440
Speaker 1: are these ultra lightweight towers and that they would be

442
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: assembled at a particular location. I guess there would be

443
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: like a factory or something or they're making these, and

444
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 1: then they would have Zeppelin's transport them around the world.

445
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:49,640
Speaker 1: I love that that detail of it. Yes, it's it's

446
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 1: just go ahead and throw airships in there, like like

447
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:55,680
Speaker 1: every every idea that he has is is tailor made

448
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:59,400
Speaker 1: for one of those old popular science covers, right yeah,

449
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: and this is straight out of like a pulp pulp

450
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: novel from the thirties two, Like like the way that

451
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:09,959
Speaker 1: they would excavate this didn't actually happen, but theoretically they

452
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 1: would excavate sites to place these homes and by just

453
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 1: you know, dropping bombs from the zeppelin. Just drop a

454
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: small bomb, just a small one, blow up the area,

455
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 1: flatten it out, and then you could put your dimaxi

456
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: in home down. Yeah again, just completely thinking outside of

457
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 1: existing context. You know, why not why can't we dig

458
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:32,640
Speaker 1: a hole in a neighborhood by the use of smart bomb, Yeah, yeah, exactly,

459
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:34,479
Speaker 1: and then just drop it, drop the house in there.

460
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 1: From his I wouldn't be surprised if it came back

461
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: around again, you know, with the at least here in Atlanta,

462
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 1: with the way real estates are, real estate prices are going,

463
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 1: you know, it's just yeah, we'll just drop a bomb,

464
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: knocked down the whole neighborhood and then put a bunch

465
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: of these. That's basically what does happen. You know when

466
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: you when you think about these like a live work

467
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: play units that go up in like a year, you know,

468
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:58,440
Speaker 1: they're just really quickly built. Maybe he did inspire some

469
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: some engineers and architects. So the second version of this,

470
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 1: this is the one that that ended up like being built,

471
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 1: was it was shaped like a hexagon and it was

472
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 1: made out of stamped metal and it was suspended on

473
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: a mast. The mast this way I'm envisioning it was

474
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: like this was sort of like a telephone pole maybe. Um.

475
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: And this mask contained all the wiring and plumbing and

476
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Today that's where we'd have our you know,

477
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: internet chords and stuff like that. Uh. And then when

478
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: a family moved, they would just disassemble the house uh

479
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:33,680
Speaker 1: and pack it up and move it with them. It

480
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 1: would it basically like another piece of furniture or something

481
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 1: like that. Um. And he really only built the scale

482
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: model that was exhibited in There was no full sized

483
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: version ever built because Fuller said the components weren't made yet.

484
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: There was you know, the stuff didn't exist yet. I

485
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: think it went beyond just like the stamped metal and

486
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 1: and the structure of the thing. I think he was

487
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: thinking along the lines of sort of science fiction e

488
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: type technology that would come as part of this home, uh,

489
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: stuff that we probably considered you know normal nowadays, like

490
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: you know, entertainment center or something like that. Yeah. Yeah,

491
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 1: And you know, you could of course say the same

492
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: thing for the the Zeppelin's and the bomb dropping, right

493
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:21,360
Speaker 1: if you could say that, well, technology just wasn't there yet,

494
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 1: and still wasn't there yet enough to where we would trust,

495
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: say a drone to deliver an explosive device to a

496
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 1: neighborhood or you know, or or be able to adequately

497
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: deliver things via some sort of you know, a drone

498
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: Zeppelin scenario. So okay, so he didn't have the materials.

499
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 1: Then we're talking this is like late thirties. I think, um,

500
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: we probably do now. Uh So is this feasible? Is

501
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: this something that we could do today? Well? I think

502
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 1: one of the big things is that it is Fuller

503
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: is very much rebelling against existing notions of what we

504
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 1: should have, and he's saying, what what can we have?

505
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,160
Speaker 1: What we can what can we create that will fulfill

506
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: those needs? When clearly we're the rest of us that

507
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 1: the non BUCkies out there are are mostly tied to

508
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: tradition too strongly to say, you know what, I'm not

509
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: going to live in a house. I'm not even gonna

510
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 1: live in a modern house. I'm gonna live in some

511
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 1: sort of space age tent that I fold up and

512
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 1: take with me when I move. You know, you know,

513
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: you occasionally see these like kind of articles in science

514
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: magazines where it's like, hey, look at this this home

515
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: that this one person is built, and it's very much

516
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: kind of like this, but there's only one of them,

517
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's like a um some

518
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 1: sort of like cross between a Winnebago and like a

519
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 1: hobbit hole. It's like this, you know, amazing idea for

520
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: a custom built home. Um. Yeah, I just I wonder

521
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: if it's feasible to mass produce them the way that

522
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: he was imagining. You know, you gotta have demand be

523
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: there or or it's got to be a situation where

524
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 1: there's a real need for it. Because one of the

525
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 1: applications that that has come up at times with some

526
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: of these designs is why you could use it for

527
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: emergency housing. You could you essentially a better take ons

528
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 1: FEMA trailer on time of scenario. Yeah, that's true. And

529
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: and um here's what I think of it. As you

530
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: remember in the fifth element, the apartment that Bruce Willis

531
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: lives in and that I don't remember, I remember it

532
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: was vaguely blade runner any bed. Yeah, So it's basically

533
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: like all the apartments are just like a bed and

534
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: then like that folds out of a wall and everything

535
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: else folds out of a wall. You're basically in like

536
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: a room that's the size of like a walking closet.

537
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: It's got one window and a door, and they're kind

538
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: of like stacked on top of each other like um,

539
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: like crates. Most Um. That's that's That's what I keep

540
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: thinking of when I'm thinking of like the buck MMR.

541
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: Fuller Dymaxian house. You know, like your shower head pops

542
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: out of the wall in the corner, and then like

543
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: the house is somehow designed so that all the water

544
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: drains down immediately, you know, your your kitchen surfaces pop

545
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: out of the sides of the wall. Whatever, whatever you

546
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: need is available. But basically the space is very compact

547
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: and small, and the the the actual structure itself is utilitarian,

548
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: so the space transforms to meet your needs. And ye

549
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: so if it needs to be a bathroom with toilet

550
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: pops up, comes down, Yeah you just need to do yoga.

551
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 1: Everything goes into the wall, right, yeah, yeah exactly. Um.

552
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that's visible either, but but

553
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: like some of some of the architecture, I think that

554
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: we're seeing people experiment with today, we might we might

555
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: be heading towards something like that. Um. So okay, So

556
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: he tried to mass produce these, even though they never

557
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: really got off the ground. He worked together with this

558
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: aircraft company in Wichita. So this was sorry, so not

559
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: the late thirties, mid mid forties. Um, he did try

560
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: to build two examples. They collapsed. Uh. The only surviving

561
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: version of this actually is in the Henry Ford Museum

562
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 1: in Dearborn, Michigan. So if you're out in Dearborn, you

563
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: can go see one of these things see how it worked.

564
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you, guys, if you've seen

565
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: us before in action. I'm sure some listeners have seen

566
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: one of these, or maybe they'll have seen some of

567
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: the geodesic domes. We're gonna talk about it shortly. Um,

568
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: he applied dymaxion too, almost everything. I'm surprised there wasn't

569
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: a Dymaxian dome. But there was a bathroom. Yeah, we're

570
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: already talking about fifth element bathrooms, and he got in

571
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: there as well. So the bathroom was just this single

572
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: unit that had a built in shower, toilet, and sink, etcetera.

573
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: It was just all you know, it's basically like a

574
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: porta potty with like a sink and a shower built

575
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: into it. Yeah, and you know, I'm I'm kind of

576
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 1: sold on this because there's so much goes into the

577
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 1: modern bathroom. Like there's like if you build a bathroom

578
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: onto your house, um, like it just it gets really

579
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: complicated really fast, and you have to worry about like

580
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 1: how far is it or you're gonna have to have

581
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: additional pumps and there's so many pipes going into it.

582
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: But if you could just drop something in, if there

583
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: was just this module like Lego, Yeah, it's just this

584
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: Lego block your your your House project by a Zeppelin,

585
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: then why not? Yeah? And the bath room is another

586
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: is one of those key areas where we really don't

587
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: do a lot of rethinking of the bathroom. So it's

588
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: time for a full Bucky redo. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

589
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: Oh that could we could do a whole episode on that. Yeah.

590
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,959
Speaker 1: I mean, the the audacity of the modern toilet is

591
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just ridiculous. So we should be rethinking

592
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: the toilet more than we do, which makes me wonder

593
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: to what extent he actually changed how we pooped. Yeah,

594
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: I'm sure that there was a Dymaxian toilet out there

595
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: somewhere that reimagined that whole scenario. I know you and

596
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: Juliet covered something like that previously, right, Yeah, we talked

597
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: a bit about about the science of pooping and uh yeah,

598
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: since that episode, I've become a big advocate of the

599
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: squat potty. So yeah, yeah, well, who knows. I'm sure

600
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: if he were here today, Bucky would listen. Yeah, I

601
00:31:57,440 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: can imagine he would be a squatter if he were here.

602
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: You're around now. But at the time, it just the

603
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: concept might not have been out there enough for Yeah,

604
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:05,880
Speaker 1: it could have been a little too riskue. I mean,

605
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: flying cities was pretty much as hard as far as

606
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: he could push it and just run through. A couple

607
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: of other Dimaxian ideas he had. It was the Dimxician

608
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 1: development unit, which was essentially a mobile shelter also described

609
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: as a grain bin with windows, and I believe this

610
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: was something that like the military would use right deploy

611
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: this in scenario essentially like a FEMA trailers situation um.

612
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 1: And then he also had a Dimaxian map, which is

613
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 1: projection of the world map onto the surface, and then

614
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: so he drin a There was the twenty sided polygon,

615
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: which can be unfolded and flattened to two dimensions, which

616
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: also didn't catch up. So I'm trying to imagine this

617
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: basically looks like a large twenty sided die for D

618
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: and D eat. It unfolds into a map. Why why

619
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:54,959
Speaker 1: because because it's cool? Okay, But but that, just like

620
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: the flat map didn't work for him. He needed flat

621
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: He wanted to carry it around. The dime Axion man

622
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: can't really roll with a traditional map. He needs a

623
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: map that uh that that looks like it was given

624
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: to us by you're already like thinking in the Madison

625
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: Avenue like version of Dymaxian Man sales. I like that.

626
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: I think it would be a great name for a

627
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: store shop, a Dymaxion Man. I would not be surprised

628
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: because when I was doing research for this, the A

629
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 1: state of our Buckminster Fuller is kept up pretty well.

630
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 1: The website is pretty interesting and has a lot of

631
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: information of it on him of its own. Um. But

632
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if there is somebody who's holding

633
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: the copyright to Dymaxion right now and just waiting for

634
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 1: the opportunity. Oh yeah, because I mean again, a lot

635
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: of these ideas were, according to the man himself, ahead

636
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: of their time. And ahead of a head of ahead

637
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: of even our time. So maybe it's just about waiting

638
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: for them to come to fruition. Yeah, yeah, it could be. Well,

639
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: here's one that sort of worked. This. He didn't use

640
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,479
Speaker 1: dymaxion for this. This is the geodesic home. So this

641
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 1: is what most of us, uh probably recognize Bucky's contributions from.

642
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: Uh So the Dymaxian stuff wasn't wasn't successful. Um So

643
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 1: he said that didn't work. You know what I'm gonna do.

644
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 1: I'm gonna invent my own system of geometry. Uh and

645
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:20,320
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it synergetic geometry. Uh. And he decided

646
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: that ninety degree angles he's going to throw those out.

647
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:25,879
Speaker 1: It's all gonna be based on sixty degree angles. And

648
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: apparently he hated the number pie, so he didn't He

649
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: didn't like the idea of using that ungainly number to represent,

650
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: you know, the tree with circles. So he even though

651
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: it works, he said, nope, let's throw that away. We're

652
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 1: gonna use the tetrahedron as this basic building block for

653
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: the universe and everything's gonna stem out of that. Yeah,

654
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 1: this is interesting because it brings them behind a number

655
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: of these different threads and mysticism that that apply a

656
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: lot of mystic significance to the tetra he drawn, you know,

657
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: like the he drawn his God. The tetrahedron is having uh,

658
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 1: some sort of mathematical mystic significance. I wonder why that is.

659
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,919
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure. Again we're this episode. I feel

660
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: like it's leading us into like a spider web of

661
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: other future episodes. But there's got to be some connection

662
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 1: there that makes it um cross cultural, right, like that

663
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:25,360
Speaker 1: it's something that that other um groups of humans have

664
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: all come up on their own, separately. So he's into

665
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: the tetrahedron. He decides that he's going to invent this

666
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: thing that he calls the geodesic dome, and basically what

667
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:39,240
Speaker 1: it is is a series of struts, like metallic I believe,

668
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: struts that support a skin kind of covering, not not

669
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: actual skin. He's not Buffalo Bill here. It's it's you know,

670
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: some kind of a material he's using. But basically this

671
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: looks like a sphere cut in half, but it's composed

672
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: of triangular support. So that's where this tetrahedron stuff comes in. UM.

673
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 1: So at the time, you know, he actually managed to

674
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: parlay the whole Dymaxian failure into a teaching position at

675
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: Black Mountain College in North Carolina. And he was working

676
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: with a team of students. Uh. And they built one

677
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: of these as like you know, I think part of

678
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: one of his classes or something like that, and uh,

679
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: immediately it sagged and fell in on itself. So we

680
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: were looking at the Dymaxian home all over again. Um.

681
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,359
Speaker 1: And he claimed the he intentionally wanted this to happen because,

682
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of the faculty at the school like, oh,

683
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:32,839
Speaker 1: there's this this wacko fuller. He just had the whole

684
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: class build a crazy dome for semester and then collapsed.

685
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: What's going on? Yeah, and he apparently they were referring

686
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: to it on campus as a flapahedron. Uh and uh

687
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: so he says, no, I intentionally did that because I

688
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: wanted to know at what point the dome would collapse.

689
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: You know, he had to figure out the weak structural

690
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 1: points of this thing. He reminds me a lot of

691
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 1: the Cat in the Hat at this point, because the

692
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 1: Cat in the Hat, who I've been reading a lot recently. Um,

693
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 1: you know, he's always causing a mess. But is that

694
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: it that keeps reframing it as being a part of

695
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 1: the plan. Yeah, I knew this would happen. I knew

696
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: that the multiple cats would turn the yard into pink google.

697
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:13,799
Speaker 1: I knew that the Thing one and Thing too would

698
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:16,280
Speaker 1: run wild. But but there's a plan here, and everything's

699
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: gonna work out in the end because I know what

700
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:19,720
Speaker 1: I'm and I know what I'm doing here. Yeah, Fuller

701
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 1: doesn't strike me as a man that was capable of

702
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 1: mitting when he was wrong very easily. Um. And and

703
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,160
Speaker 1: that leads us into there was there was some controversy

704
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: around all of this, So he actually didn't invent these domes. Um.

705
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: A guy named Walter bowers Field had already designed something

706
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: like this for a planetarium in Germany, but Fuller got

707
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: the paperwork done first, so he basically filed you know,

708
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: the copyright registration whatever it was at the time that

709
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:54,839
Speaker 1: he was using for this. Uh. And so even though

710
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: you know, the Goodesic domes basically used this method method

711
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: that Bowersfeld had come with, Bucky held the u S

712
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:05,839
Speaker 1: patent and popularized the whole idea, and so we think

713
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 1: of him as being the inventor for this thing. Um.

714
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 1: Having worked on our show Stuff of Genius here at

715
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,359
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, which is largely about inventors and things

716
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 1: they've invented. That is a common story with almost all

717
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: inventions that yes, somebody else invented it, but this person

718
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: got to the copyright office first. So there was another

719
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:29,879
Speaker 1: person as well that that Bucky Uh essentially took an

720
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: idea from. Uh. This was one of his students who

721
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: is at Black Mountain College. Um. So, so part of

722
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: the idea of these geodesic domes was that they were

723
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: held together by something that he called tense segrity. I

724
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,799
Speaker 1: don't I don't know because what I from what I

725
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 1: read he the way he used the term was that

726
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 1: it was a combination of tension and integrity. Yeah, I'm not.

727
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 1: I think he just like takes words and slams them together. Well,

728
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's a there's a fine art to

729
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: creating a good poor too. But yeah, exactly. Um. But

730
00:39:03,239 --> 00:39:07,240
Speaker 1: one of the students from that program, Kenneth Snelson, claimed

731
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 1: that he was actually the one who came up with

732
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:13,399
Speaker 1: the whole idea for these sculptures, these geodesic dome sculptures. Uh,

733
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: and that he worked on it while he was a

734
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:18,360
Speaker 1: student there, but he was under Fuller at the time,

735
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 1: and that Fuller than was like, okay, well here's this.

736
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: This is ten segrity, that's what we're gonna call it.

737
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,240
Speaker 1: And yeah, you know, he just took off with the idea.

738
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: So there is again some controversy about whether or not

739
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: any of this. Now keep in mind, this is like

740
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 1: one of the only things that he did that actually

741
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: sort of worked, um, and and so there's controversy about

742
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: whether or not he even came up with it in

743
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: the first place himself, but he did work. And you

744
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 1: do see these domes yeah, around the country. Yeah, in fact,

745
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,440
Speaker 1: you can, you know, you can very easily do a

746
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:51,439
Speaker 1: search and look up geodesic domes and see they're they're

747
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: used all over the world. Actually, you know, um, the

748
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: one that is the most famous, I believe it's the

749
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: US Pavilion for the Expo sixties seven in Montreal. Um

750
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 1: they built that, they built this geodesic dome structure, and

751
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that you know, it's it's

752
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 1: fairly noteworthy. But I believe that there's some in Japan.

753
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 1: You said, you're even seeing some in your neighborhood. Growing up. Yeah. Yeah,

754
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: just down the middle of nowhere in Tennessee, there's a

755
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 1: Judesic domehouse up on the hill. Well apparently, uh, you know,

756
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: there was a little bit of problems with these, uh

757
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 1: and one of which was that they all leaked. So

758
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: I'm curious if people that lived nearby you had problems

759
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: with leaking, especially like in heavy rain seasons. You couldn't

760
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: seal them successfully the way that they were designed. Um.

761
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: Some people even said about um ones that they built

762
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: under Fuller's guidance, that they would you know add um,

763
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: what would you call it, like hulking or some kind

764
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 1: of you know, material in order to cover up the

765
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 1: spaces in between the triangles and and that would just

766
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 1: make it even worse. All right. So part of the

767
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 1: problem here is that you're creating you're creating a drastically

768
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 1: new house, but and with that comes drastically new problems

769
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 1: perhaps you know, I mean it is it's separate from

770
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:13,240
Speaker 1: the sort of evolution of the existing house design. So yeah, yeah,

771
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: and think about it. You've got you know, what kind

772
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: of a home would that be? Like you're basically just

773
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 1: under one huge dome. Like there's not a lot of

774
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: ways that you can subdivide that up. I mean you could,

775
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: but um, from what a lot of people have said

776
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:28,319
Speaker 1: who have worked on these things, that the acoustics are

777
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: as you would imagine, you know, pretty terrible. They just

778
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: broadcast everything that one person says over to the other house.

779
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: So there's not necessarily a whole lot of privacy there.

780
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: One of those structures that it looks great I'm sure

781
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: as a as a set for science fiction movie, but

782
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: then you start asking questions, well like, well, how do

783
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 1: we divide these rooms out? And then you have you're

784
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: gonna have these weird rooms where everything just sort of

785
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: caves off and into the corner. Um. Yeah, so again,

786
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 1: wonderful concept. But then when you start applying it to

787
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: the to real life and reality and our extations and

788
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 1: demands of real life and reality, uh, some of the

789
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 1: some of the potholes began to show. But you know,

790
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 1: he was able to get people to invest money in this,

791
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 1: including his wife. His wife sold thirty thousand dollars in

792
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: stocks that she had to help fund his research so

793
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: he could keep working on these things. And eventually he

794
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: built a fifty foot diameter dome that worked, you know,

795
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: other than the leaking. Today it is known as quote,

796
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:28,359
Speaker 1: the only large dome that can be set directly on

797
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 1: the ground as a complete structure, and the only practical

798
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,720
Speaker 1: kind of building that has no limiting dimensions beyond which

799
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:42,919
Speaker 1: the structural strength must be insufficient. So that sounds architecturally fascinating. Yeah,

800
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:46,359
Speaker 1: I mean it definitely, And it definitely lines up with

801
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: his his outlook on life that technology can achieve all things.

802
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: And here he has achieved essentially a perfect form. Right,

803
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: it can it works at at any given size. Yeah,

804
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: And and and I think the thing out these that

805
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 1: is we should point out that somewhat marvelous is how

806
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: light they are for their size. Right. So he built

807
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:10,319
Speaker 1: one for the Ford More Motor Company in ninety three.

808
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,879
Speaker 1: It was to this is I assume why a lot

809
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 1: of his stuff is in the Dearborn, Michigan Museum. There. Um,

810
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,360
Speaker 1: he used aluminum and fitted it with fiberglass, and it

811
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: was ninety three ft dome and it only weighed eight

812
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: point five tons. So you know, I'm not a structural engineer,

813
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: but that sounds uh fairly light. Yeah. Um. And and

814
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: then that so okay, So his wife puts in thirty

815
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: grand Ford Motor Company hires him, and then the Pentagon

816
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:42,320
Speaker 1: hires him and they say, build us this protective housing

817
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,880
Speaker 1: unit for our radar, So another dome structure that you know, basically,

818
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: I think they wanted to keep their radar, so it

819
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: wasn't the equipment wasn't so obvious from basically instead of

820
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 1: a traditional dome, des dome and then it will maybe

821
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 1: be a little more structural integrity to it. Yeah, possibly, uh,

822
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: And legend has it he even Nikita Khrushchev wanted Bucky

823
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: to come to Moscow and build one of these for him. Um.

824
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 1: And Bucky himself lived in one near Carbondale, Illinois, Illinois

825
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:14,359
Speaker 1: while he was working at Southern Illinois University. So uh,

826
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: that's the one in particular that I know leaks really badly.

827
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: The the that was the one that that Uh. I

828
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: read interviews with people who worked on the construction of it,

829
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 1: and they were just saying, yeah, like you know, he

830
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 1: lived there, lived in quotations, but I think that it

831
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily habitable. So that brings us to the natural

832
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:41,399
Speaker 1: extensive extension of the geodesic sphere, which is m I've

833
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 1: got this idea for this sphere thing. It's kind of

834
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,280
Speaker 1: working out. Okay, I got car companies and the Pentagon

835
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,719
Speaker 1: giving me money to make more of these What if

836
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 1: I could make these things fly? Yeah? I mean he's

837
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:55,320
Speaker 1: and he's already expressed an interest in ceiling up cities

838
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: and domes and whatnot. And and so this is like

839
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 1: the perfect extension, perfect tention of his design philosophy. Enclose

840
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: us and close all of us and close a community

841
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:08,399
Speaker 1: in this structure that he has dreamed up, and then

842
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 1: that structure will simply float up off the ground. Yeah.

843
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 1: So the idea here was that the temperature adjustments inside

844
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 1: the sphere would uh like sort of act like a

845
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 1: hot air balloon, like it would be warmer on the

846
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: inside and subsequently it would float upwards. Um. But but

847
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: that it would be large enough that it could float

848
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 1: and have the same quote unquote tense segrety of his

849
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: domes and also hows you know, an entire metropolis. Um.

850
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: This is I'm gonna read this part here because it's

851
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: this is his explanation of how it works technically, although

852
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: keep in mind nobody has ever actually built by cloud nine. Um.

853
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 1: So he sees it as a half mile diameter geodesic

854
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: sphere that would only weigh one thousandth of the weight

855
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: of the air inside of it, so that contributes to

856
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,359
Speaker 1: why it's able to float. If the internal air were

857
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:06,320
Speaker 1: heated by either solar energy or just you know, average

858
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: human activity inside producing heat, it would take only one

859
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: degree shift in fahrenheit over the external temperature of the

860
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: dome or sphere rather to make it float. So the

861
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 1: idea here is that the internal air would get denser

862
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: when it cooled, and Bucky figured, you know, he'd put

863
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:27,319
Speaker 1: polyethylene curtains around the outside to slow the rate that

864
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: the air from outside was entering the sphere. So this

865
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: is his you know, he did actually think out some

866
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 1: of the math and science around this um. Essentially, it's

867
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: a it's a space age hot air ballint except much

868
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 1: larger and uh and would you know would would allow

869
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: us in theory to elevate small communities and not whole

870
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: metropolis is I don't don't think you ever actually argued that,

871
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 1: but but small towns, many cities, etcetera. Well, you know,

872
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: he took this idea basically because there was a game

873
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: name Matt Suturo Shariki in Japan who challenged him and said, hey,

874
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 1: you know you've got all these big ideas, here's what

875
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: I would like to see, um uh, you know, come

876
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: up with something that can float over Tokyo bay um.

877
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: And so that's where Bucky basically, you know, really put

878
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:20,279
Speaker 1: his effort into this. I believe Shariki paid him to

879
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: sort of think this up. But so they had two names.

880
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: We were calling them cloud Nines. That was sort of

881
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: their nickname, but the the official name was the Spherical

882
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: Tin Secrity Atmosphere Research Station or STARS for short. Uh.

883
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 1: And his idea was basically, like you know, like with

884
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: all of his other sort of portable homes or or

885
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: gadgets and inventions, you take these things around, set them up.

886
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,839
Speaker 1: You know. One idea was that you could anchor him

887
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 1: to a mountain, so you've just got this flying home

888
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 1: next to a mountain, or you just let him go,

889
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 1: like let him go like a balloon that flies out

890
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:54,919
Speaker 1: of a child's hand, and just the inhabitants would see

891
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 1: the world like wherever the dome took them. It's a

892
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:02,759
Speaker 1: wonderful optimistic vision. Yeah, technology has I mean, it's the

893
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: ultimate non drudgery home. Right, You're literally floating free of

894
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:10,240
Speaker 1: the world. You're no longer limited by the confines of

895
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,440
Speaker 1: of your environment. You don't have to worry about floods

896
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: or storms. Well, you probably have to worry about storms,

897
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: but but you know, you can do a little advanced notice.

898
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 1: You can just float to a storm free area, right, Yeah, yeah,

899
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 1: I mean I think that that's the idea all over

900
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:28,240
Speaker 1: the nearest Zeppelin Zeppelin coming by to dropped some bombs,

901
00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 1: to build some homes. They just zip by, tug you along.

902
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how he envisioned controlling

903
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: the direction these things went. And I didn't read anything

904
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: about like propulsion or anything like that. But maybe it

905
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: was just all that fascination of Zeppelin's at the time. Um,

906
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: he would have been like a steampunk cost player. Now

907
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:47,720
Speaker 1: it is, Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm kind of surprised

908
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 1: that I don't see this idea replicated in uh in

909
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: science fiction. I mean, I assume it is. Is it

910
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: has been used somewhere because because Buckminster was just too influential,

911
00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 1: not but you think it would be showing up in

912
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: video games left and right. I worked on something once

913
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: that wasn't published where there was a Cloud nine in

914
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:08,839
Speaker 1: the story. And this was before I had started working here.

915
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:11,960
Speaker 1: And done some really deep research on Fuller and I believe,

916
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 1: I want to say it was something by Warren Ellis

917
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: that I had read where he had envisioned using cloud

918
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: nines for something. Yeah, it sort of inspired me. And

919
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: you certainly see this concept employed elsewhere with other other

920
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:30,399
Speaker 1: other individuals were thinking about the possible you know, applications

921
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:34,240
Speaker 1: for this kind of technology. Uh, in particular nineteen seventy

922
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:39,800
Speaker 1: one edition of Technica Mola Desi, which was a essentially

923
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:45,279
Speaker 1: Soviet era popular science magazine, and uh, you see this

924
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: concept for colonies in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Because

925
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 1: of course, the planet Venus at surface level is just

926
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: a poisonous pressure cooker, you know, that's it's not hospitable

927
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:01,360
Speaker 1: in the least for human life. But conceivably, if you

928
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 1: were to have some sort of a floating structure, you

929
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 1: could you could you could just place it in the

930
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: upper atmosphere and there we would be able to live

931
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 1: and you know, artificially not out in the open, but

932
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: but with a with a little more earthlike conditions. And

933
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: so cloud City and Empire strikes back. Yeah, I mean

934
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: I was never sure exactly how Cloud City was supposed

935
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:24,400
Speaker 1: to float in that science magic propelling it. But this

936
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: particular concept in the in the Soviet publication would have

937
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 1: used a very similar design using uh, you know you

938
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: depending on the buoyant sea of the atmosphere enclosed in

939
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: a giant sphere. Okay, okay, yeah, the drawing for that

940
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:42,759
Speaker 1: is fascinating. And you posted that onto the Stuff to

941
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: Boil your in mind site already, right, yes, and I'll

942
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:47,799
Speaker 1: be sure to include a link to that post on

943
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: the landing page for this episode. Okay, great, Yeah, everybody

944
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: go take a look at that, because I think it

945
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:57,839
Speaker 1: gives you a pretty good idea of how humans would

946
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 1: turn a flipping sphere like this into a little microcosm,

947
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and he's kind of around me like

948
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 1: a submarine. Yeah, And he's very much in keeping with

949
00:51:07,120 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 1: the fuller design philosophy of like, here's something we could do,

950
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 1: potentially can do, but there are a lot of steps

951
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: that would need to get check off the list before

952
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:20,279
Speaker 1: we actually got to floating cities. Well, and that that

953
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:24,719
Speaker 1: was basically his you know, and thesis on the whole

954
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 1: thing was he even said like, all right, this is

955
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 1: not an idea that I know how to actually bring about.

956
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 1: He called it a exercise to stimulate imaginative thinking. Uh.

957
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:38,840
Speaker 1: And so you know, he thought it would eventually be

958
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 1: possible to do this, but he didn't see how they

959
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 1: could be constructed until his far future. I don't know

960
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:46,720
Speaker 1: how far in the future he meant. Maybe it's today,

961
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:50,239
Speaker 1: maybe it's two hundred years from now, I don't know. Um. So,

962
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:53,439
Speaker 1: you know that's basically that's a that's a good round,

963
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:58,400
Speaker 1: uh summary of a fuller There's you know, more to

964
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:00,799
Speaker 1: him than the wacky invention that we didn't really get

965
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:04,399
Speaker 1: into today. He is noted as being what we refer

966
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 1: to today as somebody who would be like a green

967
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 1: philosopher like, uh, take note, like the solar energy aspect

968
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:14,759
Speaker 1: of the of the cloud nines, that's how they would

969
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:19,759
Speaker 1: be heated, not with gas or or other fossil fuels. Uh.

970
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: And he's also you know, seen as being a social

971
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 1: theorist too, so some people see him as really thinking

972
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: ahead of time about human again like what I was

973
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: saying earlier, like I think he would be like a

974
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:33,800
Speaker 1: great urban studies professor today. Yeah. Yeah. He seemed to

975
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:37,360
Speaker 1: think a lot about you know, where technology meets humanity

976
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:39,880
Speaker 1: and not just you know, not just about what's come

977
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 1: before and but but also but what we can do

978
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: with it and and and and what needs need to

979
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,759
Speaker 1: be met by a technology? Yeah. Yeah, Well, so okay,

980
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 1: I went into this, uh, you know, wanting to to

981
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 1: to love him. I think I learned a little bit

982
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: more about his background and it it made me less

983
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:02,400
Speaker 1: convinced of him as an inventor necessarily. But uh, you know,

984
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:04,799
Speaker 1: even though only a few of his ideas have come

985
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:08,279
Speaker 1: to fruition, you know, he has influenced counterculture to quite

986
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: a degree, social thinking as well. And uh, you know,

987
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 1: a lot of Silicon Valleys pioneers list him as being

988
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:18,879
Speaker 1: one of the biggest inspirations. Yeah, and ultimately that's that's

989
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 1: his contribution, is that he was a dreamer and he

990
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: and he was an optimist when it came to technology

991
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 1: and uh and design and uh and so yeah, that's

992
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:32,680
Speaker 1: his greatest gifts. He passes this design philosophy onto individuals

993
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,359
Speaker 1: who can either take those dreams a little further or

994
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: figure out how to realistically apply them in a beneficial way. Yeah,

995
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:43,959
Speaker 1: the practical applications. Maybe that's something that comes after his life. Yeah,

996
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 1: you gotta have somebody throw out the dream and then

997
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 1: somebody else needs to make it, figure out how to

998
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: make Maybe he's not as much of a con artist

999
00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:51,440
Speaker 1: as I made him out to be at the beginning

1000
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: of the episode. Man, yeah, I I don't think of

1001
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: him as as a con artist as much as a

1002
00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 1: dreamer who like like his post Cloud nine is is

1003
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:03,719
Speaker 1: floating a little bit off of here. Well, they like

1004
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: his vision that he experienced to floating and that his

1005
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 1: life is not. Oh yeah, look at that, those all

1006
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:13,760
Speaker 1: connect floating. He's literally in this sense of an architect

1007
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 1: and engineer who doesn't have both feet on the ground.

1008
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:19,279
Speaker 1: But that's all love him because he's he's thinking free

1009
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:22,839
Speaker 1: of those restraints. Absolutely. So there you have it. That

1010
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:26,000
Speaker 1: is our buckminster Fuller indeed, to dive into who he

1011
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 1: was when we're still talking about him today and what

1012
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:33,360
Speaker 1: some of his more out there ideas and encouraging ideas

1013
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:36,399
Speaker 1: that consisted of. So if you are out there and

1014
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,359
Speaker 1: you have seen some of these inventions in real life,

1015
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear about it or even maybe you know,

1016
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 1: see photos or something like that. If you could send

1017
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:46,400
Speaker 1: him to us on social media. You can find us

1018
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler, where we are Blow to

1019
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: Mind on all of those platforms, and of course the

1020
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 1: mothership floating high above the surface our cloud nine is

1021
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, so check that

1022
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 1: out for all the podcast episode, it's all the videos,

1023
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:03,600
Speaker 1: all the blog posts, links out to those social media accounts,

1024
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:06,279
Speaker 1: you name it, and you can always contact us at

1025
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:12,840
Speaker 1: blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com. For

1026
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how

1027
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:22,480
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com.