I spent 4 hours in a car alone with Bucky, driving from Boston to northern Vermont. I was in college, and in total awe of spending so much time alone with a man like Bucky..... turned out he was just a lovely elderly man and he spent the whole time asking me about my life, my family, where my people came from....just an amazing drive through the mountains that I will never, ever forget.
Joe, I much enjoyed your video. Thank you for investing the time in creating and sharing it. One of my colleagues spent years working with and learning from Bucky, some of which of course percolated to me. I think one of the most powerful things we can share is how a person < thought > and perceived the world, and how those perspectives and paradigms can be learned and applied by each of us for our own, and the world’s benefit. In that spirit, a key take away about Fuller was that he always went to the biggest possible, universal perspective to understand and solve problems, what I call “FullerVision.” Essentially this means to step back, rise above and gain as much potential perspective, and ideally objectivity around a problem or opportunity in order to have the best shot at understanding, approaching and supporting it to its highest potential…
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” -Buckminster Fuller
I like Bucky's principle of "Ephemeralization" . The tendency to be able to do more and more with less, until we can do anything with almost nothing. Eg, The Watch, Camera , Video Recorder and Phone of the past, is now just a Smartphone. Desktop Computers today used to take up a whole basement 50 years ago. The Model T power to weight ratio was 21:1, modern small car 70:1 etc
@@nicolaiveliki1409 C60 isn't very hard. It was looked into as a possible lubricant (think macro bearings), but the balls simply fall apart under pressure. Periodic videos did a segment on it.
You know, there have been other events and eras on this planet that have caused people to think, "Well, I guess this is the end of the world!" But we're still here, years, decades, centuries, millenia later. I'm going to try to be an asset, rather than a burden, and I insist on being at least somewhat optimistic in the face of so many challenges, if for no other reason than to spite the crises and the pessimists.
@@bobspizza7444 yes i'm seeing the state of the world and i know we still got a long way to go, but it's stupid yo think that THIS is the end of humankind, we got milage
YES, Mars, the designers playground! Joe really downplayed Bucky's design influences. All of his designs are brilliant and about 100 years ahead of his time. He even analyzed this gestation period of design based on materials and wealth distribution.
The walls of the dome would have to be thick for radiation protection. Either that or we would have to find a way to produce artificial magnetospheres Otherwise, the only practical Mars habitats would be underground bunkers or something akin to earthsheltered buildings.
Thank you for talking about one of my idols! The funny thing is, when i studied architecture a few years ago, Buckminster Fuller was the future and still is to this day.
This!!! Absolutely! I truly believe these would be fantastic in our venture to the moon and Mars! Hell! I'll take a Bucky's house here in the US... my wife and kids might desire to live in a separate house thousands of miles away but hey, I'd be on the cutting edge of technology!!!
Wtf is wrong with you? Do you not understand the domes weren't for space. They would literally have solved the housing crisis globally had they been embraced. But people thought they looked weird.
@@evanobrien7278 it's not just that they were not embraced, they are impossible to build near a city. There are rules against them in most areas for some reason.
I remember hearing about buckyballs while I was doing undergraduate research in college with colloidal gold thin metal films. Apparently they have some applications in film chemistry as well.
He would sometimes start his lectures with, "I'd like to introduce myself as the world's most successful failure." He knew that a lot of his concepts were way ahead of his time. He never retired either, engaged in lectures and projects until the end.
Thanks for this video! I built a series of large geodesic domes as part of a class project in high school (1970): first out industrial-size cardboard, then metal tubing bolted to plywood hubs. Buckminster Fuller’s philosophy inspired me to pursue a career in sustainable environmental design.
There's one major, gigantic difference between Bucky's home and the "smarthomes" we have nowadays: His home is something you own and serves you. The "smarthome" tech we have nowadays is something you pay to OWN YOU in service of mega companies!
Wow, it has been just 13 minutes and already a hail of comments is heading towards, you must be doing something extraordinary...of course you are, love you and your channel, big fan.
That was a great video! Thanks Joe! I got really hooked up on the geo-dome designs (I was planing for a metal-frame house already, so it wasn't much of a stretch to simply change shape to something more efficient) In my research I found some pre-history of geodesic domes (or to be precise a pre-Buckminster-Fuller-history). It turns out Walther Bauersfeld actually invented the geodesic dome, but solving the challenge of the first light-projection planetarium - the one in Jena. And what's even cooler he actually used the geodesic-sphere geometry to solve first the projector's fields of view issue arising from having multiple projection lenses - ie to make sure their projections fit perfectly without overlapping. So he made the projector itself in the form of a Icosahedron (which btw for some reason Google's Chrome tries to auto-correct to Tetrahedron :D). And as consequence of that it inspired Bauersfeld to design the projection surface in the same form precisely - and the first geodesic dome was born :) Buckminster Fuller turns out learned of this project while in Black Mountain College from Walter Gropius who effectively transferred that knowledge to Fuller across 24 years. That's not to take anything from Bucky Fuller role in popularizing the geo-domes - without him this design could very well be forgotten! That story is explained perfectly in John Hurt's video (as series of episodes on "The Hidden History of the Geodesic Dome"): czcams.com/video/wOIkhLzftuA/video.html It was also how I found that 10 years ago I was actually in that original (ie technically the 2nd one, since the 1st one was on top of Zeiss factory) geo-dome - the Jena Planetarium ... ... it's funny what a man can learn years later about his own experiences :D
My personal favorite historical character! What I love about the dymaxion house was that it is an example of redesigned hardware, not just another app. We need more people who are willing to create things like that.
Yeah, I probably should have at least mentioned buckyballs, but I was kind-of trying to focus on the house concept. There was so much to talk about regarding Bucky.
Buckyballs, fullerenes ,there's a few things I was expecting to be mentioned. When scientists are naming their new whizzbang thing after someone, you can be pretty sure they were influential with their ideas, even if they weren't successful in their own time.
I think many of us imagined to make the world into a better place when we were young, then the life strikes in a big wave, and everyone knows what that changes us. But, by watching your video about how bright our future and even how bright our history is, really helping to keep that young spirit stay. Thanks.
The Dymaxion house is a prototype for an extraterrestrial planetary habitat. It's crude, for all of its sophistication for it's time, but with the innovations of the space age applied to each individual system it reads like a laundry list on necessary applications and solutions.
I met Buckminster Fuller when I was a freshman in college. After the lecture Mr Fuller wanted to talk to me. He told me to listen to my professors but not to believe them. He was such a wonderful man. A real treasure.
Thank you for making this video. There is so much more to Buckminster Fuller. I have been a fan of his since I was about 7 or 8 years old. I consider him a personal hero.
I love the intro to all your episodes, at first it seems random but it always leads into the episode so well. Makes you think sometimes, its always good im a huge fan man! love your work!
This video was really informative ! 👍 In addition, it contains some topics for other videos, especially home architecture and smart homes (tech). Really very interesting.
I love the way you think, speak, present yourself and that you continue learning. I so wish there were more people like you. Thank you for all of your videos.
circular homes are actually super common, most stone age homes were round, huts were usually round, and even most medeival homes were round (look at the Anglo-saxon and early english wattle homes), and virtually all native american homes were round.
I've seen the house model at Henry Ford Museum years ago-- I only remember how intriguing it was. I'm glad you made a video on it's creator. Thanks! Good job~
Bucky proposed several concepts that have been important to me: * don't work for a living (he threw in his job as a science article writer for a magazine to go freelance inventing with no certainty of being able to support his family) * architecture is the last bastion of a general degree (used to be sailing ship naval captain) * don't patent your ideas (no patent on the geodesic dome) * use nature as an inspiration (geodesic dome) * if you write poetry keep it to yourself (his is atrocious!)
He did patent it but he didn't invent it. He received a patent in the US after stealing Walther Bauersfeld's design, along with an artist that was building in the US
Bucky did have patents. I have a copy of his first geodesic patent #2,682,235 by my easy chair. He wrote that he needed them to create credentials for himself because he was freelancer. If you had patents the power people would pay attention to you. Sometime around 1965 Popular Science magazine had plans to build a geodesic dome and included in the plans was a contract that you could build one with his permission even though it was patented. Years later I did build a 500 square foot foot half sphere and lived in it for a few years in the woods. I consider myself a bucky child.
You can patent things and immediately release them to public domain. Keeps other parties from artificially monopolizing ideas. Intellectual property is stupid.
Joe, your videos stimulate the mind and curiosity, I am forever in your debt for finding out things I would never have found out. Your personal touch and humour makes watching your videos a really pleasurable experience in this mundane molecular life.
I came across your channel the other day and now I'm plowing through your videos. Thanks so much for putting these together, you obviously put a lot of energy and research into them. Thank you for the learning and the entertainment.
Wow. CueCat. I was literally thinking about these yesterday while washing some dishes. I got one from Radio Shack back in the day. I'm shocked you have one to hold up for the camera.
Hey, I have one right here. (Well, it's not right here it's over there in a box.) It's still in really good condition, because it never really got a lot of use. Oh, maybe that was Joe's point.
fun fact, theres a really easy way to hack them, one allows any barcode to be read, the other allows you to output directly as a upc code over the keyboard input. spay and neutering as its called. mines been modded and works wonders
I love Bucky! I wish I could have met him. I think we could have had a very interesting conversation. The book that I read first was Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. And it set me on a journey of discovering the man as well as constantly being inspired by his ideas. I even ended up writing a song about him called "Mr. F." But I can see many of his ideas being modified and used as incredible teaching tools for the current times. I think part of what caused him to not be successful with so many things, culturally speaking, was the fact that he was such a generalist; the fact that he thought in such broad terms. Thinking this way makes it extremely difficult to really apply an idea in the real world. The kinds of problems and concepts he was dealing with mentally were each worthy of an entire life dedicated to it to simply produce one or two actual real-world improvements to human life. And yet he never stopped thinking in a sort of overview of everything. But that's who he was and that's how his mind worked. If there was one thing I would like people to learn that he tried to teach, it would most definitely be this: "The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done."
Keep up the good work Joe. I like how you are treating you're channel like a proper business, releasing videos at set days. Been a long time viewer and I am considering patreon right now
Another very good video Joe. In 1994 I had the opportunity to play his world game. It was set up in a ballroom of a hotel with his dymaxion map on the floor. 100 of us received a shirt and a card. Other players represented the media, the world bank and some other global actors. My shirt was black with CN on it. My card told me that I represented 55million people living in China and a date at which to walk onto the map. The host then went through the 4.5 billion years of Earth's history walking the length of the ballroom to give scale to it all. Then he came to human existence which was barely the thickness of the wall paper at the far end of the ballroom. So he had to stop walking as he chronicled our fleeting time here. At about 800BCE the first person (representing 55 million) walked onto the map. It took until the 1950s for about half the people to be on the map. Everyone else came on in the last 40 years! There were so many other enlightening aspects to this game, but for the sake of brevity I will stop there. Bucky was indeed ahead of his time and a great global thinker.
Yeah, I mean, they sell entire rooms or sections of rooms as "units" now and with IKEA and whatnot you can just transplant a show room into your own house. The illusion of choice and variety is manufactured and all that. 😅
Thanks for your presentation , I remembered when he came to Architecture School in Montevideo , I attended his speech , very lively guy , jumping gesticulating , laughing , inspiring ..
Great ideas the world wasn't ready for: Nikola Tesla but Buckminster Fuller definitely is a candidate too (I didn't know about him - will research more, though)
Some of the differences between Bucky and Tesla. Tesla has become something other than who he was. Fiction is being generated about him, and it’s growing. He was also nuts, and this is why he died alone, in poverty. Legends don’t seem to be springing up about Bucky. He lived a long life, never sought wealth, and was always able to get what he needed as he needed it. This was part of his core philosophy, that if one works to better humanity, the universe will provide. Bucky’s first book, 9 Chains to the Moon, contained 3 chapters on Einstein’s theory of relativity. His publisher told him they couldn’t publish it, because they didn’t understand it, and had been led to believe there were only ten people in the world who did understand relativity, and Bucky wasn’t one of them. So, pissed, he told them to go ask Einstein if he’d gotten it right. So they did. A short time later, Bucky got an invite to meet Einstein. During the meeting, Einstein said the first 2 chapters were fine. (Bucky was the first person to describe Relativity in layman’s terms.) What really amazed Einstein though was the third chapter, which discussed how the world was going to change because of Einstein’s work. It had never occurred to Albert that his work would change the world. He thought it would remain in the sphere of physicists. Bucky even blew Einstein’s mind. Another difference between Bucky and Tesla. I think Tesla was focused on things that could be done right now. Bucky often said something like he made artifacts of inevitable technology. He knew his work would one day be more commonplace, and people would look back in history and point to what he did, and his inventions would be the artifacts of tech to them. Gee I’ve rambled. But as you can see from the other comments, Bucky does that to a person.
I saw and heard Bucky speak at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in the 1970s, and walked through the geodesic domes set up outside for the occasion. I loved it, very inspiring, and being in the domes gave a great energy and tranquility. I have ever since then hoped to have a home that is based on a geodesic dome.
Joe, I'd love you to do a deep dive into some of Bucky's ideas. His book Critical Path is an incredible read. He starts with a speculative history of innovation, plotting that bronze could only have been discovered in places where tin AND copper had been smelted, for instance. His floating cities idea is amazing. And he wanted to deliver Dymaxion House high-rises, fully assembled, to remote places, using dirigibles. His Dymaxion Map was used to show that land on the Earth is one continuous continent, and that it is possible to provide a city worth of electricity over all of it , every 150 miles.
Poxyclypse, it's only a matter of time before the Dymaxion Airocean World approach is applied to the Cosmic Background Radiation map. The Hubble Telescope has already shown the Cold Spot and the Hot Spot. When we spread out current projections onto a series of 20 equal triangles, we should see a unity that we had never noticed. In Bucky's words, "unity is always plural and at least two."
Just a couple of months ago, I visited an old friend who had built a version of a geodesic dome, with a composting twa-let. Though different from Buckminster Fuller's original conceptions, they were inspired by Bucky, and my friend has long been sold on his geodesic home. Buckminster Fuller lives!
I saw the Dimaxian house at the Ford museum and walked through it. It has some amazing innovations but was small and had a bit of a closed in feeling to it. I’m sure if it had been built on a larger diameter it wouldn’t have felt so claustrophobic. What a mind Mr. Fuller had. I always wanted to build and live in a geodesic dome house. That seemed so right.
Funny, as I was watching this, I noticed something interesting about the things you said: “you couldn’t just go down to the Home Depot and get a replacement part,” “there were only a few people in the world who knew how to repair these kinds of things,” we’ve become used to our “boxy homes,” someone who would “speak at the speed of thought,” - these all reminded me of a company called Tesla for which it is difficult to get replacement parts or qualified mechanics, which works against a culture that has gotten used to it’s noisy, fume-producing ICE cars, with a leader who (at least, to me) seems to speak at the speed of thought in a somewhat off-the-cuff way. Just wondered if that was in the back of your mind with this visionary’s story. Great show! Keep it up!
Yeah...no. Tesla will not sell parts, allow any mechanics or persons not contracted by them to service your vehicle and will charge you 50% of the vehicle's value and make you wait 6 months after a fender bender. You're very mistaken, as are the other ignorant fools that liked your comment
R. Buckminster Fuller is my absolute idol. I want to grow up to be an architect and absolutely love R.B.F.'s designs and style. I enjoy those same geometric shapes as him and enjoy just looking at his buildings. I just look at his buildings and just get this indescribable feeling of happiness and I just get sucked into his designs.
At first I was disappointed that you did not mention his speeding ticket and Buckminsterfullerene but then I was thankful to learn about his houses, which I never really read about before. Thanks!
I cried at that story about him getting drunk and planning to commit suicide while it doesnt matter to me if it's a fake story it moved me and I'm glad to have heard that. Gives me motivation in these rough times. Good video for an awesome human being
Fuller was still successful...not because his ideas caught on, but because he "APPLIED [himself]...to the highest advantage of Others," which was the only thing asked, of him, by that ominous "voice" that spoke to him just prior to his near "suicide attempt". Having faith in One's self is more important than "achieving success" in any particular arena...mainly because we, of our own volition, are unable to distinguish when it IS, exactly, that we may be affecting someone else in a positive way. The "voice", which spoke to Fuller, should've followed its monition with one of Goethe's couplings: "Whatever you can do or DREAM you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." `Love your channel, Joe! Be well!
Really interesting.I heard of Bucky in relation to John Denver and his conservation efforts,and know that John hugely admired him and his thinking.Just goes to show that there's always so much more to a person than first meets the eye.
I first heard of Buckminster Fuller back in the 70's through a Popular Science magazine story about geodessic domes. I have raved about their ability to withstand tornadoes & hurricanes. I have been to Italy, Texas twice to see Monolithic Domes. Every time a tornado touches down somewhere I would mention domes and the people I worked with would all say "they're ugly, I would never live in one"
Round houses are a good example of engineers maximizing the math but forgetting the purpose. Round houses are normally designed to maximize sq footage on the inside and minimize it on the outside. But no one told these designers that's not what people want. 'Boxy' houses maximize Useful sq footage and that is what most people want.
I live in a circular-ish house... its more pentagon shaped but none the less it appears roundish. I love it... the builders made good use of the space.
1) I've heard that the Beatles song "Fool on the Hill" is about Bucky. 2) Although he understood the economics of invention and construction in the theoretical, I think he failed to grasp the practical aspects of economic systems, especially capitalism, which kept the social aspects of his thinking from coming to fruition.
I read Bucky’s book “Intuition” back in the early 70s when I was in college. Bucky had bought a big sailboat and named it Intuition, although the book was not really about that, it was more a stream of consciousness thing, like his lectures. It inspired me toward a lifelong love of sailing, so I thank him for that
Like Fuller, I too am somewhat of an abstract thinker and creator. Perhaps one day, after I am gone, people will try to dissect my notes and works, that would be a great honor. Thanks for sharing your take on Fuller with us. I really like the work you do and the way you present it, keep it up Joe!
I would suppose that some of his ideas about how houses should function, how they should be designed and built, were introduced to the design of space stations and bases on other celestial bodies. Even passive air conditioning systems for buildings are becoming more and more common. just my2cents
When I was 8 years old, we visited the grounds of Expo 67, in Montreal (born and raised there). The USA pavilion (featured in at least 3 of the photos of Bucky you showed and of course, designed by him) was awesome. Unforgettable. I was so fond of the thing. It was part of Montreal. When most of the other pavilions were demolished years later, it was still there, and employed for many different uses. I was appalled when in 1976 it caught fire and its entire skin was burnt away. You can see its history on wikipedia under "Montreal Biosphere" It seems to be fate that I ended up marrying someone who actually climbed the thing (illegally of course) in his youth!
Why are people so proud of being early in the comments? I'm a bit ashamed cause it's a sign I don't have life outside of internet and I get here as soon as I see the notification. What is this being first sh#t? Am I getting old? Help
omg i remembered going to the prototype house in my school field trip to henry ford museum! being in something so futuristic yet old, his innovative ideas resonated with me.
I feel Bucky’s pain! 5 years ago I designed a fully electric race car that has set multiple speed and endurance records but nobody cares because electric race cars are like round houses: too weird for people to appreciate. But I take comfort from knowing that Bucky kept pitching his ideas until the end, and while I have no delusions that electric race cars will change the world, perhaps I’m just ahead of my time 😉 HTTP://www.evsr.net if you’re curious about electric racing.
I spent 4 hours in a car alone with Bucky, driving from Boston to northern Vermont. I was in college, and in total awe of spending so much time alone with a man like Bucky..... turned out he was just a lovely elderly man and he spent the whole time asking me about my life, my family, where my people came from....just an amazing drive through the mountains that I will never, ever forget.
Wow, that’s awesome!
Joe, I much enjoyed your video. Thank you for investing the time in creating and sharing it. One of my colleagues spent years working with and learning from Bucky, some of which of course percolated to me. I think one of the most powerful things we can share is how a person < thought > and perceived the world, and how those perspectives and paradigms can be learned and applied by each of us for our own, and the world’s benefit. In that spirit, a key take away about Fuller was that he always went to the biggest possible, universal perspective to understand and solve problems, what I call “FullerVision.” Essentially this means to step back, rise above and gain as much potential perspective, and ideally objectivity around a problem or opportunity in order to have the best shot at understanding, approaching and supporting it to its highest potential…
Really!? ❤🙏🏻🌌
🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍 you LUCKY guy ! ! !
I did yoga with the university of Iowa's Dr. Van Allen's (the belt guy) daughter in Iowa City!
😆
(tongue in cheek one-upmanship)
2:03 Q: What temperature is a triangle? A: 180º of course
😂😂 Good one!
Inside, or outside?
Sorry to question you, it was just a reflex. (😉)
How much does gravity way?
Probably something. I dont know.
@TheGundeck only if it's a Euclidean triangle. 😉
@@nicosmind3 Gravity ways towards.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
-Buckminster Fuller
well... failure is an option
@@Szobiz ?
@Frank H Bergeron lol, good one?
@Frank H Bergeron operation mindfuck, got it. carry on
Like Tesla? Including Tesla sells direct and doesn't advertise.
I met him in 1979...quite an encounter which I will treasure always....he really was WAY ahead of his time.
I like Bucky's principle of "Ephemeralization" . The tendency to be able to do more and more with less, until we can do anything with almost nothing.
Eg, The Watch, Camera , Video Recorder and Phone of the past, is now just a Smartphone.
Desktop Computers today used to take up a whole basement 50 years ago.
The Model T power to weight ratio was 21:1, modern small car 70:1 etc
Q: What temperature is a triangle?
(Vsauce music)
Anodyne Melody negative bruh..🤷♂️
Anodyne Melody good boy...
Anodyne Melody no.... actually your 42...silly
I feel like vsauce sold out :(
cat does the “va’Gin sauce have a rick and morty after taste?????
The hardest objects known to man are named after him: Buckyballs, aka Fullerenes. Their structure closely resembles his geodesic architecture
Aka C60, aka the (assoc.) football molecule. There are several other shapes of fullerene besides the Buckminsterfullerene, though.
Fullerene crystals aren't hard. They're soft. I've worked with it.
@@incognitotorpedo42 I'm not talking about crystals that incorporate fullerenes, but the fullerenes themselves
Buckyballs are harder than diamonds?
@@nicolaiveliki1409 C60 isn't very hard. It was looked into as a possible lubricant (think macro bearings), but the balls simply fall apart under pressure. Periodic videos did a segment on it.
He's still inspiring architects and imaginations today. His actions have echos. Who knows what his impact will be 500 years from now.
hope it's none
You seeing town the world acts now. You really thinking humans got 500 more years. Lmao. Creating nukes sealed our fate
You know, there have been other events and eras on this planet that have caused people to think, "Well, I guess this is the end of the world!" But we're still here, years, decades, centuries, millenia later. I'm going to try to be an asset, rather than a burden, and I insist on being at least somewhat optimistic in the face of so many challenges, if for no other reason than to spite the crises and the pessimists.
@@bobspizza7444 yes i'm seeing the state of the world and i know we still got a long way to go, but it's stupid yo think that THIS is the end of humankind, we got milage
Whenever an architect get creative, yo can be sure it's gonna be expensive.
This man is one of the hundreds of thousands of geniuses who we never appreciated
most of them died in cotton farms or so.
@@wiszak9370 Running cotton farms maybe.
@@wiszak9370 LOL. You think they sold the brightest?
Or he was on something…
Or he was on something…
Perhaps his designs could inspire habitats for Mars colonization. Seems like a good fit. Definitely ahead of his time.
I wonder how much he and Warner Von Braun influenced each others habitat designs? You might have hit the nail on the head with that one
I think SpaceX actually does intend on constructing geodesic domes for the first Mars habs
YES, Mars, the designers playground! Joe really downplayed Bucky's design influences. All of his designs are brilliant and about 100 years ahead of his time. He even analyzed this gestation period of design based on materials and wealth distribution.
Why not Earth to begin with?
The walls of the dome would have to be thick for radiation protection. Either that or we would have to find a way to produce artificial magnetospheres Otherwise, the only practical Mars habitats would be underground bunkers or something akin to earthsheltered buildings.
Thank you for talking about one of my idols!
The funny thing is, when i studied architecture a few years ago, Buckminster Fuller was the future and still is to this day.
His domes may be considered revolutionary if we ever colonize the solar system
This!!! Absolutely! I truly believe these would be fantastic in our venture to the moon and Mars! Hell! I'll take a Bucky's house here in the US... my wife and kids might desire to live in a separate house thousands of miles away but hey, I'd be on the cutting edge of technology!!!
Wtf is wrong with you? Do you not understand the domes weren't for space. They would literally have solved the housing crisis globally had they been embraced. But people thought they looked weird.
They were revolutionary either way. With tornadoes every year in usa they should build everything like this
@@evanobrien7278 it's not just that they were not embraced, they are impossible to build near a city. There are rules against them in most areas for some reason.
I heard he stole the geometry of his domes off a student of his.
C60 - Buckyballs! They’re named after him!
And fullerite.
I was going to say
"Sounds like a load of Buckyballs"!
Roger Starkey Yeah me too actually, but I thought it would be slightly disrespectful, so I chickened out at the last moment!
I was wondering why Joe didn't mention the C60?
I remember hearing about buckyballs while I was doing undergraduate research in college with colloidal gold thin metal films. Apparently they have some applications in film chemistry as well.
He would sometimes start his lectures with, "I'd like to introduce myself as the world's most successful failure." He knew that a lot of his concepts were way ahead of his time. He never retired either, engaged in lectures and projects until the end.
I used to go to a church that was a geodesic dome and used some of Fuller's design elements from the dymaxion house inside. It was quite cool!
Thanks for this video! I built a series of large geodesic domes as part of a class project in high school (1970): first out industrial-size cardboard, then metal tubing bolted to plywood hubs. Buckminster Fuller’s philosophy inspired me to pursue a career in sustainable environmental design.
There's one major, gigantic difference between Bucky's home and the "smarthomes" we have nowadays: His home is something you own and serves you. The "smarthome" tech we have nowadays is something you pay to OWN YOU in service of mega companies!
bucky was just trying to give us freedom :(
You are right
SpeedStriker ok Alex jones
@@Sandity tesla did too, then they pulled all his funding. All that matters in this world is power and control. Freedom isn't an option
@@chrism8180 Freedom _is_ an option. It's just the way of maximum resistance - external as well as internal.
Wow, it has been just 13 minutes and already a hail of comments is heading towards, you must be doing something extraordinary...of course you are, love you and your channel, big fan.
That was a great video! Thanks Joe!
I got really hooked up on the geo-dome designs (I was planing for a metal-frame house already, so it wasn't much of a stretch to simply change shape to something more efficient)
In my research I found some pre-history of geodesic domes (or to be precise a pre-Buckminster-Fuller-history). It turns out Walther Bauersfeld actually invented the geodesic dome, but solving the challenge of the first light-projection planetarium - the one in Jena. And what's even cooler he actually used the geodesic-sphere geometry to solve first the projector's fields of view issue arising from having multiple projection lenses - ie to make sure their projections fit perfectly without overlapping. So he made the projector itself in the form of a Icosahedron (which btw for some reason Google's Chrome tries to auto-correct to Tetrahedron :D). And as consequence of that it inspired Bauersfeld to design the projection surface in the same form precisely - and the first geodesic dome was born :)
Buckminster Fuller turns out learned of this project while in Black Mountain College from Walter Gropius who effectively transferred that knowledge to Fuller across 24 years.
That's not to take anything from Bucky Fuller role in popularizing the geo-domes - without him this design could very well be forgotten!
That story is explained perfectly in John Hurt's video (as series of episodes on "The Hidden History of the Geodesic Dome"):
czcams.com/video/wOIkhLzftuA/video.html
It was also how I found that 10 years ago I was actually in that original (ie technically the 2nd one, since the 1st one was on top of Zeiss factory) geo-dome - the Jena Planetarium ...
... it's funny what a man can learn years later about his own experiences :D
I've always been fond of his floating and flying city ideas.
My personal favorite historical character! What I love about the dymaxion house was that it is an example of redesigned hardware, not just another app. We need more people who are willing to create things like that.
Buckminster Fuller is my all time favorite inventor.
Joe, when I saw the notification, I thought it was going to be about nanotechnology... Buckyballs. Great video tho. Thanks!
Are you greatful for youtube vids?
Yeah, I probably should have at least mentioned buckyballs, but I was kind-of trying to focus on the house concept. There was so much to talk about regarding Bucky.
@@joescott New video please!
Buckyballs, fullerenes ,there's a few things I was expecting to be mentioned. When scientists are naming their new whizzbang thing after someone, you can be pretty sure they were influential with their ideas, even if they weren't successful in their own time.
There's a Dymaxion car in the Reno Automobile Museum. It seems like a sensible vehicle from another planet.
Bucky designed Pioneer center in downtown Reno.
I think many of us imagined to make the world into a better place when we were young, then the life strikes in a big wave, and everyone knows what that changes us. But, by watching your video about how bright our future and even how bright our history is, really helping to keep that young spirit stay. Thanks.
Brokeplexity - the complexity of being broke most of the time hehehe
"If you know what this is, you're laughing"
Maniacally so!
The Dymaxion house is a prototype for an extraterrestrial planetary habitat. It's crude, for all of its sophistication for it's time, but with the innovations of the space age applied to each individual system it reads like a laundry list on necessary applications and solutions.
The temperature of a triangle is always 180°
@@toddthreess9624...
No... a triangle is always 180
@@toddthreess9624 I think that you are getting it mixed up with a circle :),
@@toddthreess9624 oh okie i apologize i didnt notice the first part of your comment and assumed you were talking about a circle :)
da vinci like that - everything he invented didn't work yet, too far ahead of this time
Yeah, he had the same problem even worse, no way to construct most of his ideas, don't think Mr Fuller died a bitter man as Da Vinci did though.
@Gernot Schrader yes I believe you are correct.
I met Buckminster Fuller when I was a freshman in college. After the lecture Mr Fuller wanted to talk to me. He told me to listen to my professors but not to believe them. He was such a wonderful man. A real treasure.
Thank you for making this video. There is so much more to Buckminster Fuller. I have been a fan of his since I was about 7 or 8 years old. I consider him a personal hero.
I love the intro to all your episodes, at first it seems random but it always leads into the episode so well. Makes you think sometimes, its always good im a huge fan man! love your work!
This video was really informative ! 👍 In addition, it contains some topics for other videos, especially home architecture and smart homes (tech). Really very interesting.
I love the way you think, speak, present yourself and that you continue learning. I so wish there were more people like you. Thank you for all of your videos.
I saw Fuller 3 times in the 70,s. He electrified crowds. He was way ahead of most tech.
I love your videos Joe. I'm a 60 year old man and I learn something every time I'm here!
He should have tried to sell the Dymaxions to the Mongols as it looks a lot like a metallic yurt. 🙂
Yep. I'm serious also.
Or as an an emergency fast deploy structure after natural disasters.
circular homes are actually super common, most stone age homes were round, huts were usually round, and even most medeival homes were round (look at the Anglo-saxon and early english wattle homes), and virtually all native american homes were round.
It's not the wisest of ideas to aim on selling your stuff to non-wealthy folks, though.
I WAS THINKING OF THAT TOO,MAY BE HE WAS INSPIRED BY THE MONGOLS
I think of him almost daily ever since a friend introduced me to his ideas. His near suicide story and his views on work really resonate with me.
I've seen the house model at Henry Ford Museum years ago-- I only remember how intriguing it was. I'm glad you made a video on it's creator. Thanks! Good job~
Great history lesson.
I look forward to more of this kind of content.
Thank you very much.
Bucky proposed several concepts that have been important to me:
* don't work for a living (he threw in his job as a science article writer for a magazine to go freelance inventing with no certainty of being able to support his family)
* architecture is the last bastion of a general degree (used to be sailing ship naval captain)
* don't patent your ideas (no patent on the geodesic dome)
* use nature as an inspiration (geodesic dome)
* if you write poetry keep it to yourself (his is atrocious!)
He did patent it but he didn't invent it. He received a patent in the US after stealing Walther Bauersfeld's design, along with an artist that was building in the US
Bucky did have patents. I have a copy of his first geodesic patent #2,682,235 by my easy chair. He wrote that he needed them to create credentials for himself because he was freelancer. If you had patents the power people would pay attention to you. Sometime around 1965 Popular Science magazine had plans to build a geodesic dome and included in the plans was a contract that you could build one with his permission even though it was patented. Years later I did build a 500 square foot foot half sphere and lived in it for a few years in the woods. I consider myself a bucky child.
You can patent things and immediately release them to public domain. Keeps other parties from artificially monopolizing ideas. Intellectual property is stupid.
Joe, your videos stimulate the mind and curiosity, I am forever in your debt for finding out things I would never have found out. Your personal touch and humour makes watching your videos a really pleasurable experience in this mundane molecular life.
I came across your channel the other day and now I'm plowing through your videos. Thanks so much for putting these together, you obviously put a lot of energy and research into them. Thank you for the learning and the entertainment.
Wow. CueCat. I was literally thinking about these yesterday while washing some dishes. I got one from Radio Shack back in the day. I'm shocked you have one to hold up for the camera.
Hey, I have one right here. (Well, it's not right here it's over there in a box.) It's still in really good condition, because it never really got a lot of use. Oh, maybe that was Joe's point.
fun fact, theres a really easy way to hack them, one allows any barcode to be read, the other allows you to output directly as a upc code over the keyboard input. spay and neutering as its called. mines been modded and works wonders
I had never heard of him before this video, really interesting, thank you.
I love your channel, Joe, and I love the topics you cover! Thanks for all the great content and hopefully you don't stop :D
I love Bucky! I wish I could have met him. I think we could have had a very interesting conversation.
The book that I read first was Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. And it set me on a journey of discovering the man as well as constantly being inspired by his ideas. I even ended up writing a song about him called "Mr. F."
But I can see many of his ideas being modified and used as incredible teaching tools for the current times. I think part of what caused him to not be successful with so many things, culturally speaking, was the fact that he was such a generalist; the fact that he thought in such broad terms. Thinking this way makes it extremely difficult to really apply an idea in the real world. The kinds of problems and concepts he was dealing with mentally were each worthy of an entire life dedicated to it to simply produce one or two actual real-world improvements to human life. And yet he never stopped thinking in a sort of overview of everything.
But that's who he was and that's how his mind worked.
If there was one thing I would like people to learn that he tried to teach, it would most definitely be this:
"The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done."
7:19 the irony of this when you look as an aerial view of a modern us style housing suburb ...they all look the bloody same lol
Keep up the good work Joe. I like how you are treating you're channel like a proper business, releasing videos at set days. Been a long time viewer and I am considering patreon right now
Thank you, I hadn't heard of this guy...., I love Futurists!! They inspire me.
Yes!
Another very good video Joe.
In 1994 I had the opportunity to play his world game. It was set up in a ballroom of a hotel with his dymaxion map on the floor. 100 of us received a shirt and a card. Other players represented the media, the world bank and some other global actors. My shirt was black with CN on it. My card told me that I represented 55million people living in China and a date at which to walk onto the map. The host then went through the 4.5 billion years of Earth's history walking the length of the ballroom to give scale to it all. Then he came to human existence which was barely the thickness of the wall paper at the far end of the ballroom. So he had to stop walking as he chronicled our fleeting time here. At about 800BCE the first person (representing 55 million) walked onto the map. It took until the 1950s for about half the people to be on the map. Everyone else came on in the last 40 years! There were so many other enlightening aspects to this game, but for the sake of brevity I will stop there.
Bucky was indeed ahead of his time and a great global thinker.
Like all the cookie cutter houses today give you so much diversity
haha, right
Yeah, I mean, they sell entire rooms or sections of rooms as "units" now and with IKEA and whatnot you can just transplant a show room into your own house. The illusion of choice and variety is manufactured and all that. 😅
One of my favorite thinkers ever! Thanks for doing a video on him!
Thanks for your presentation , I remembered when he came to Architecture School in Montevideo , I attended his speech , very lively guy , jumping gesticulating , laughing , inspiring ..
When you have a whole family of molecular structures named after you its clear you have had an impact
In a small way... 😉
Great ideas the world wasn't ready for: Nikola Tesla but Buckminster Fuller definitely is a candidate too (I didn't know about him - will research more, though)
Some of the differences between Bucky and Tesla.
Tesla has become something other than who he was. Fiction is being generated about him, and it’s growing. He was also nuts, and this is why he died alone, in poverty.
Legends don’t seem to be springing up about Bucky. He lived a long life, never sought wealth, and was always able to get what he needed as he needed it. This was part of his core philosophy, that if one works to better humanity, the universe will provide.
Bucky’s first book, 9 Chains to the Moon, contained 3 chapters on Einstein’s theory of relativity. His publisher told him they couldn’t publish it, because they didn’t understand it, and had been led to believe there were only ten people in the world who did understand relativity, and Bucky wasn’t one of them.
So, pissed, he told them to go ask Einstein if he’d gotten it right.
So they did. A short time later, Bucky got an invite to meet Einstein.
During the meeting, Einstein said the first 2 chapters were fine. (Bucky was the first person to describe Relativity in layman’s terms.)
What really amazed Einstein though was the third chapter, which discussed how the world was going to change because of Einstein’s work. It had never occurred to Albert that his work would change the world. He thought it would remain in the sphere of physicists.
Bucky even blew Einstein’s mind.
Another difference between Bucky and Tesla.
I think Tesla was focused on things that could be done right now.
Bucky often said something like he made artifacts of inevitable technology. He knew his work would one day be more commonplace, and people would look back in history and point to what he did, and his inventions would be the artifacts of tech to them.
Gee I’ve rambled. But as you can see from the other comments, Bucky does that to a person.
Oh yeah, Bucky also invented the cement mixer truck, and also the idea of putting stronger brakes on the front wheels of a car, not the rear.
I didn’t laugh at the Qcat… but my bird started laughing. He’s not even watching he’s on the other side of the room😂
I saw and heard Bucky speak at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in the 1970s, and walked through the geodesic domes set up outside for the occasion. I loved it, very inspiring, and being in the domes gave a great energy and tranquility. I have ever since then hoped to have a home that is based on a geodesic dome.
Joe, I'd love you to do a deep dive into some of Bucky's ideas. His book Critical Path is an incredible read. He starts with a speculative history of innovation, plotting that bronze could only have been discovered in places where tin AND copper had been smelted, for instance. His floating cities idea is amazing. And he wanted to deliver Dymaxion House high-rises, fully assembled, to remote places, using dirigibles. His Dymaxion Map was used to show that land on the Earth is one continuous continent, and that it is possible to provide a city worth of electricity over all of it , every 150 miles.
Poxyclypse, it's only a matter of time before the Dymaxion Airocean World approach is applied to the Cosmic Background Radiation map. The Hubble Telescope has already shown the Cold Spot and the Hot Spot.
When we spread out current projections onto a series of 20 equal triangles, we should see a unity that we had never noticed. In Bucky's words, "unity is always plural and at least two."
I love his designs and i really wish that the Buckminster sphere would be used more in modern architecture like biospheres!
Just a couple of months ago, I visited an old friend who had built a version of a geodesic dome, with a composting twa-let. Though different from Buckminster Fuller's original conceptions, they were inspired by Bucky, and my friend has long been sold on his geodesic home. Buckminster Fuller lives!
I saw the Dimaxian house at the Ford museum and walked through it. It has some amazing innovations but was small and had a bit of a closed in feeling to it. I’m sure if it had been built on a larger diameter it wouldn’t have felt so claustrophobic. What a mind Mr. Fuller had. I always wanted to build and live in a geodesic dome house. That seemed so right.
Funny, as I was watching this, I noticed something interesting about the things you said: “you couldn’t just go down to the Home Depot and get a replacement part,” “there were only a few people in the world who knew how to repair these kinds of things,” we’ve become used to our “boxy homes,” someone who would “speak at the speed of thought,” - these all reminded me of a company called Tesla for which it is difficult to get replacement parts or qualified mechanics, which works against a culture that has gotten used to it’s noisy, fume-producing ICE cars, with a leader who (at least, to me) seems to speak at the speed of thought in a somewhat off-the-cuff way. Just wondered if that was in the back of your mind with this visionary’s story. Great show! Keep it up!
Yeah...no. Tesla will not sell parts, allow any mechanics or persons not contracted by them to service your vehicle and will charge you 50% of the vehicle's value and make you wait 6 months after a fender bender. You're very mistaken, as are the other ignorant fools that liked your comment
Joe, Synergetics! He created an entirely new field of study!
Good luck explaining it in under a year though. Lol,
R. Buckminster Fuller is my absolute idol.
I want to grow up to be an architect and absolutely love R.B.F.'s designs and style.
I enjoy those same geometric shapes as him and enjoy just looking at his buildings.
I just look at his buildings and just get this indescribable feeling of happiness and I just get sucked into his designs.
At first I was disappointed that you did not mention his speeding ticket and Buckminsterfullerene but then I was thankful to learn about his houses, which I never really read about before. Thanks!
I love random thursdays
I cried at that story about him getting drunk and planning to commit suicide while it doesnt matter to me if it's a fake story it moved me and I'm glad to have heard that. Gives me motivation in these rough times. Good video for an awesome human being
Fuller was still successful...not because his ideas caught on, but because he "APPLIED [himself]...to the highest advantage of Others," which was the only thing asked, of him, by that ominous "voice" that spoke to him just prior to his near "suicide attempt".
Having faith in One's self is more important than "achieving success" in any particular arena...mainly because we, of our own volition, are unable to distinguish when it IS, exactly, that we may be affecting someone else in a positive way.
The "voice", which spoke to Fuller, should've followed its monition with one of Goethe's couplings:
"Whatever you can do or DREAM you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
`Love your channel, Joe! Be well!
This is the epitome of my life Joe. I'm always early and first too call stuff and everyone looks at me like I'm wrong, even after it's come true.
First man who foresaw future was Jules Verne. And not like a dream, but from a scientific point of view.
The father of science fiction..
Da Vinci, Archimedes etc.
God warned man about the tree of knowledge.... He knew one day man would be god....Destroyers of worlds.
@@tommyodonovan3883 man would be God maybe but man just wants peace,that's all we want
I wonder if he ever felt “cornered “?
He was a well-rounded individual.
:)
Really interesting.I heard of Bucky in relation to John Denver and his conservation efforts,and know that John hugely admired him and his thinking.Just goes to show that there's always so much more to a person than first meets the eye.
I first heard of Buckminster Fuller back in the 70's through a Popular Science magazine story about geodessic domes. I have raved about their ability to withstand tornadoes & hurricanes. I have been to Italy, Texas twice to see Monolithic Domes. Every time a tornado touches down somewhere I would mention domes and the people I worked with would all say "they're ugly, I would never live in one"
Round houses are a good example of engineers maximizing the math but forgetting the purpose.
Round houses are normally designed to maximize sq footage on the inside and minimize it on the outside. But no one told these designers that's not what people want.
'Boxy' houses maximize Useful sq footage and that is what most people want.
Jacque Fresco must've definitely been inspired by this guy.
He was, but Jacpue went a lot further with the ideas.
@David Adams It kinda surprised at how many people are talking about Jacque and The Venus Project on this video.
Great videos. Thx for all the hard. I really enjoyed a Bucky refresh is exactly what I needed. Please do another on all his designs and models.
I live in a circular-ish house... its more pentagon shaped but none the less it appears roundish. I love it... the builders made good use of the space.
1) I've heard that the Beatles song "Fool on the Hill" is about Bucky.
2) Although he understood the economics of invention and construction in the theoretical, I think he failed to grasp the practical aspects of economic systems, especially capitalism, which kept the social aspects of his thinking from coming to fruition.
Having lived in the age of the dinosaurs, I can tell you that, "Fool on the Hill" was about Nixon.
@@chromabotia LOL
“Portmandoo”. 🤣Think you might mean Portmanteau?
I read Bucky’s book “Intuition” back in the early 70s when I was in college. Bucky had bought a big sailboat and named it Intuition, although the book was not really about that, it was more a stream of consciousness thing, like his lectures. It inspired me toward a lifelong love of sailing, so I thank him for that
Like Fuller, I too am somewhat of an abstract thinker and creator. Perhaps one day, after I am gone, people will try to dissect my notes and works, that would be a great honor. Thanks for sharing your take on Fuller with us. I really like the work you do and the way you present it, keep it up Joe!
Leonardo Da Vinci was still the epitome of that kind of man "it's the 16th century I think the world is ready for my new invention, the helicopter"
In a similar vein, remembering Steve Allen's(w/ Jayne Meadows) Meeting of Minds, Da Vinci, Tesla and Fuller would have been fascinating guests.
Lol
YOU belong to the universe, Mr Scott. Always remember that.
Reinnemann2...As do we all, my friend, as do we all...
@@klyvemurray well if I do then I really wish the universe would stop using me as its personal punching bag. : )
I heard him speak live in 1979. He brought a tensegrity sphere on stage with him. It was quite a memorable speech.
This video was AWESOME!
Now we know where they got the idea for the simpsons movie.
I live in Northern Ireland. We dont need our houses cooled!
Dome the city ;)
Lucky 🍀 you 😉
Great video! Thanks Joe
Recently checked out "I seem to be a verb" from my college library. Very happy to see this come in my recommendations
I would suppose that some of his ideas about how houses should function, how they should be designed and built, were introduced to the design of space stations and bases on other celestial bodies.
Even passive air conditioning systems for buildings are becoming more and more common.
just my2cents
Carbon Buckyball ....😃👍
When I was 8 years old, we visited the grounds of Expo 67, in Montreal (born and raised there). The USA pavilion (featured in at least 3 of the photos of Bucky you showed and of course, designed by him) was awesome. Unforgettable. I was so fond of the thing. It was part of Montreal. When most of the other pavilions were demolished years later, it was still there, and employed for many different uses. I was appalled when in 1976 it caught fire and its entire skin was burnt away. You can see its history on wikipedia under "Montreal Biosphere" It seems to be fate that I ended up marrying someone who actually climbed the thing (illegally of course) in his youth!
Your videos are the best Joe! Great work!!!
Why are people so proud of being early in the comments? I'm a bit ashamed cause it's a sign I don't have life outside of internet and I get here as soon as I see the notification. What is this being first sh#t? Am I getting old? Help
It's just a thing people do
I ran across one of those dome houses. It was all I could do not to knock on the door and demand a tour. My aversion to being shot quelled my hunger.
omg i remembered going to the prototype house in my school field trip to henry ford museum! being in something so futuristic yet old, his innovative ideas resonated with me.
Audiobooks are the best way of putting up with being in stop start traffic.
I will take a paperback and a self-driving car any day
@@ShelburneCountry something that doesn't exist yet
I feel Bucky’s pain! 5 years ago I designed a fully electric race car that has set multiple speed and endurance records but nobody cares because electric race cars are like round houses: too weird for people to appreciate. But I take comfort from knowing that Bucky kept pitching his ideas until the end, and while I have no delusions that electric race cars will change the world, perhaps I’m just ahead of my time 😉
HTTP://www.evsr.net if you’re curious about electric racing.
Huh? We've had Formula E for five years now.
John Early damn... This dude just killed all of your achievements with one sentence.
MrCordycep good job killing his life long achievements man. That was great to watch.
Ha. Lying jackass isn't even smart enough to research his bullshit. Could've been believable 20yrs ago
In the year since this was first posted, GM has announced a soon to be released super high end Corvette that’s a hybrid.