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grav_ityBeing not content with limiting itself to Nikola Tesla, Sanctuary has gone and added Buckminster Fuller to the canon, increasing its number of overlooked/obscure/amusingly quirky steampunk-style geniuses. Here are some things about Fuller that might come in handy, should he appear in your fanfic.
Born Richard Buckminster on July 12, 1895, Fuller was known as Bucky to his friends and R. Buckminster professionally. He's American, born in Massachusetts, Bucky struggled to grasp concepts unless he could build them himself, which he was very good at.
Fuller was expelled from Harvard twice: once for spending too much time with a Vaudeville act and once for not paying enough attention to his classes. He eventually got his Sc.D from Bates College in Maine.
He served in the Navy in World War I as a radio operator, editor and crash rescue boat commander. He spent most of the 20s in Chicago living in poverty and suffering from depression after his daughter died of polio. By 1928, Fuller moved to Greenwich Village and hung out at Romany Marie's, trying to come up with a way to change the world.
In 1948, teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Fuller began work on the Geodesic Dome, which would be his most famous invention. He suspended students from the framework to exhibit the structure's stability, and got a military contract out of Ralleigh to build domes for the army. His company was called Geodesics Inc. The most famous geodesic dome in North America is at Epcot Center.
Fuller pioneered a lot of futuristic concepts, like synergetics and ephemeralization, and was a big believer in doing more with less: he "thought globally" before just about anyone else, and was very good at repurposing things. He tried to make all his inventions as sustainable as he could. He is credited with the term "Spaceship Earth". His "Dymaxion House" is lightweight, cheap and energy efficient, but it has never been mass produced.
Fuller really, really loved tetrahedrons, believing they were the most natural shape, and used them in just about everything. This is seen the most obviously in the geodesic dome, but also in the Dymaxion Map, for which Fuller received a patent even though it was against regulations to patent any more mapping techniques (the tetrahedron allows a round surface to me made flat with fewer distortions. It's also not euro-centric and has no north/south bias, which is cool).
Fuller flew a lot and wore three watches: one for the time zone he was in, one for the zone he was leaving and one for the one he was headed towards. In 1943, he claimed he had discovered a way to sleep only 2 hours a night and suggested to the army that this would help then win the war, but nothing ever came of it.
A spinoff to the geodesic dome is a "buckyball", which was the standard FIFA soccer ball from 1970 until 2006.
If you are writing dialogue, please note that Fuller was a fan of enormous run on sentences, and used a lot of his own words and neologisms. He maintained that this was to describe everything as accurately as possible, in relation to Spaceship Earth.
Buckminster Fuller died July 1, 1983 at the age of 87 in Los Angeles.
Helen Bancroft would have been involved in the Black Mountain College days, and thus was probably using Fuller for the domes, and possibly also the Dymaxion houses. I like the idea of using the sleep thing as an abnormality, but that's really up to you. ;) I am all over the map thing, though. CARTESIAN BEARS FOR EVERYONE.
You can find more through wiki and the various links: here.
There's also the Buckminster Fuller Institute, which has good pictures (I am coveting the map SO HARD!), and some of his books (and books about him).
Have fun!
Born Richard Buckminster on July 12, 1895, Fuller was known as Bucky to his friends and R. Buckminster professionally. He's American, born in Massachusetts, Bucky struggled to grasp concepts unless he could build them himself, which he was very good at.
Fuller was expelled from Harvard twice: once for spending too much time with a Vaudeville act and once for not paying enough attention to his classes. He eventually got his Sc.D from Bates College in Maine.
He served in the Navy in World War I as a radio operator, editor and crash rescue boat commander. He spent most of the 20s in Chicago living in poverty and suffering from depression after his daughter died of polio. By 1928, Fuller moved to Greenwich Village and hung out at Romany Marie's, trying to come up with a way to change the world.
In 1948, teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Fuller began work on the Geodesic Dome, which would be his most famous invention. He suspended students from the framework to exhibit the structure's stability, and got a military contract out of Ralleigh to build domes for the army. His company was called Geodesics Inc. The most famous geodesic dome in North America is at Epcot Center.
Fuller pioneered a lot of futuristic concepts, like synergetics and ephemeralization, and was a big believer in doing more with less: he "thought globally" before just about anyone else, and was very good at repurposing things. He tried to make all his inventions as sustainable as he could. He is credited with the term "Spaceship Earth". His "Dymaxion House" is lightweight, cheap and energy efficient, but it has never been mass produced.
Fuller really, really loved tetrahedrons, believing they were the most natural shape, and used them in just about everything. This is seen the most obviously in the geodesic dome, but also in the Dymaxion Map, for which Fuller received a patent even though it was against regulations to patent any more mapping techniques (the tetrahedron allows a round surface to me made flat with fewer distortions. It's also not euro-centric and has no north/south bias, which is cool).
Fuller flew a lot and wore three watches: one for the time zone he was in, one for the zone he was leaving and one for the one he was headed towards. In 1943, he claimed he had discovered a way to sleep only 2 hours a night and suggested to the army that this would help then win the war, but nothing ever came of it.
A spinoff to the geodesic dome is a "buckyball", which was the standard FIFA soccer ball from 1970 until 2006.
If you are writing dialogue, please note that Fuller was a fan of enormous run on sentences, and used a lot of his own words and neologisms. He maintained that this was to describe everything as accurately as possible, in relation to Spaceship Earth.
Buckminster Fuller died July 1, 1983 at the age of 87 in Los Angeles.
Helen Bancroft would have been involved in the Black Mountain College days, and thus was probably using Fuller for the domes, and possibly also the Dymaxion houses. I like the idea of using the sleep thing as an abnormality, but that's really up to you. ;) I am all over the map thing, though. CARTESIAN BEARS FOR EVERYONE.
You can find more through wiki and the various links: here.
There's also the Buckminster Fuller Institute, which has good pictures (I am coveting the map SO HARD!), and some of his books (and books about him).
Have fun!
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Date: 2012-01-02 08:44 pm (UTC)I've not seen any news yet on a season 5, but I sure hope there is one!
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Date: 2012-01-03 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 03:48 pm (UTC)