Product Description
Edmondson clarifies Buckminster Fuller's synergetic geometry in conventional language and mathematics and illuminates his effort to employ synergetics as a strategy for human survival. Updated author Preface and new Foreword by J. Baldwin.clarifies ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Informative
This book makes Fullers Synergistics much more understandable than Fullers books. Fuller did make some great contributions, especially the geodesic dome but this material is so similar to sacred geometry and I really wonder about the usefulness. I was also disappointed that I did not come away knowing how to describe my world in terms of Fullers dimensional system. Maybe I did not read carefully or maybe I am just not smart enough but I still do not know how to actually apply this to the world around me. I have a degree in engineering and I am good at describing the world in terms of orthogonal coordinates. I found the application of non-orthogonal dimensions confusing. Fuller was so compulsive about using precise language and yet in many ways his language is very imprecise and in some cases just plain stupid. In others he used common words in different ways creating confusion. This is not a fault of the book. I am assume the book presented him accurately.

A fabulous translation of a great thinker's work
Buckminster Fuller's "Synergetics" is a fabulous text, but grasping its words in their fullness is challenging. I have gone to the depths on some of the sections of that book: the rewards are great, but the cost is also tremendous.

Professor Amy Edmondson provides a translation for the ages in A Fuller Explanation. While honoring the work of Fuller, she presents the ideas in a way that can be understood by anyone.

To understand how things work, it's critical to understand the nature of physical structure. These concepts are rarely discussed unless you study physics or material science in detail. That's a darn shame, because understanding structure is critical to understandinghow nature creates structure -- and how it's so different than manmade structure.

This book is back in print -- it's just not available at Amazon yet.
The ISBN of the new edition is 978-0-615-18314-5.

This clearly explains the secret geometry of the universe
Cartesian geometry is not merely inconvenient, but wrong enough so that it's actively hindering our civilization.It's a blind alley, in the same way Roman numerals were.

Buckminster Fuller's most startling inventions are trivial exercises of the theory in this book.

Sorry to sound hysterical, but this is a really important book, and it's much too neglected.It should definitely NOT be out of print.It's right up there with Euclid.Fuller was a genius, but he couldn't write.Edmondson can.

Amy Edmondson worked closely with Buckminster Fuller before he died.She extracted, and explains in this book Fuller's least tractable, least appreciated concepts: His realization that the natural analytic geometry of the universe is tetrahedral.This is the stuff that people were forming study groups to try to extract from "Synergetics," and she just lays it out, in neat, logical prose with clear diagrams, and references to related scholarly literature...

Fuller (according to Edmondson) ran into tetrahedral geometry by no less than three different routes: close packing of spheres, three dimensional stabilization of an object by either compressive or tensile members.Then, as a trivial exercise, a result, there's a proof that the maximum strength homogenous truss is tetrahedral.Then, almost as an aside, it happens that all the regular solids (except the icosahedron) have volumes that are integral multiples of the volume of a tetrahedron!

Right about then, I began to think that everything I know about geometry is, not wrong eactly, but just not the right way.You know, like finding arabic numerals when you've been using roman numerals your whole life.

I was totally blown away, and I was expecting to be bored spitless.

If you're interested in Buckminster Fuller's work, GET THIS BOOK!
If you're a mathematician, GET THIS BOOK!!!
Really! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Preschooler's Guide to Cosmology and Quantum Physics
Ok, unless the preschooler happens to be Buckminster Fuller's daughter, that might be pushing the envelope a bit, but I do confess, I used to read this to my kids before they got to kindergarten, and while it wasn't nearly the favourite that Jelly Belly was, it made them giggle.

Nonetheless, if you dare think your average Grade One-er is somehow incapable of comprehending the cosmos, then the book you need to get is this collection of tales Bucky would tell Allegra when she was 4, a marvellously presented storybook of which I once found 4 copies in a delete bin in a discount store, snarfed them all with grocery money, gave away three ... and lost the other, and have never seen one again.

There are those who say they have trouble reading Bucky, and while I can imagine their plight, I would have to say that Bucky is far easier to read than James Joyce or Ezra Pound -- the key to understanding Fuller's English can be found in the title of his book "I Seem to Be A Verb" --- Fuller was very careful to avoid most nouns, seeing them as misleading. He also sought to avoid other misleading constructs such as "sunrise" (he preferred to say sun-show and sun-clip, because that is what they truly are).

As for his vocabulary, Goldy says to the Three Bears (in Tetrascroll):

" If you don't understand any of my words, you can find them in the dictionary."

Wee Bear replies,

"Out here we use cosmic thought communications. We don't have to find words in special-language diction-airies. We use a cosmic thinktionary. All your dictionaries express the universal concepts of our thinktionary but only in special, ethnic-language sound-words. The concepts such as mountains or star or nuance are the same experience-engendered concepts in all languages. We understand you perfectly, Goldy." ... Read more

Product Description

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) was an architect, engineer, geometrician, cartographer, philosopher, futurist, inventor of the famous geodesic dome, and one of the most brilliant thinkers of his time. For more than five decades, he set forth his comprehensive perspective on the world's problems in numerous essays, which offer an illuminating insight into the intellectual universe of this "renaissance man." These texts remain surprisingly topical even today, decades after their initial publication.

While Fuller wrote the works in the 1960's and 1970's, they could not be more timely: like desperately needed time-capsules of wisdom for the critical moment he foresaw, and in which we find ourselves. Long out of print, they are now being published again, together with commentary by Jaime Snyder, the grandson of Buckminster Fuller. Designed for a new generation of readers, Snyder prepared these editions with supplementary material providing background on the texts, factual updates, and interpretation of his visionary ideas.

A biography of Buckminster Fuller's "thought development," Ideas and Integrities presents an intimate self-portrait of the experiences and discoveries behind his groundbreaking ideas and inventions. Through in-depth essays like "Total Thinking," "Design for Survival – Plus," and "The Comprehensive Man," spanning the period from his earliest writings to the invention of the geodesic dome and his explosion onto the world stage, he delivers a powerful manifesto for the comprehensive design revolution he had championed: "To make man a success on earth.... we must design our way to positive effectiveness."

Buckminster Fuller's prophetic 1962 book Education Automation brilliantly anticipated the need to rethink learning in light of a dawning revolution in informational technology – "upcoming major world industry." Along with other essays on education, including "Breaking the Shell of Permitted Ignorance," "Children: the True Scientists" and "Mistake Mystique" this volume presents a powerful approach for preparing ourselves to face epochal changes on spaceship earth: "whether we are going to make it or not... is really up to each one of us; it is not something we can delegate to the politicians – what kind of world are you really going to have?"

Product Description
A biography of R. Buckminster Fuller, the architect and inventor whose investigations into the principles of nature influenced his designs and helped revolutionize our world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

bucky-my hero and inspiration
A very tough read which I go to over and over again, I was inspired and enlightened every step of the way. Bucky's revolutionary ideas are the way of the future.Enable a future.A true visionary he saw the inevitable and being the humanitarian that he was, along with his genius devised ways to achieve world peace, free of hunger. Less is more...doing more with less.The design science revolution.A must read if you are interested in urban planning, and making a difference.Made me want to fulfill his dream. If you build it they will come.He got the buckyball rolling.Great for youth if only he wasn't so darn hard to read. Explains very well the corporate and military structure as well and the evilness implicit in the malthusian robber-baron structure to our economy. I gave it a four star review but conceptually it is 5 star...it being so difficult...I gave it a four.Bucky like McLuhan is more relevant today than in his own time and equally hard to read.

Bucky's, How to Save the Worldthrough his observations.
Naval Officer, Engineer and Inventor BF starts with a short review of his past and goes onto to give an explanation of the worlds problems followed by examples on ways to correct them.A tough read, but extremelyenlightening. ... Read more

Product Description
In the form of a modern allegory, Buckminster Fuller traces the evolution of the multinational giants from the post-World War II military-industrial complex to the current army of abstract legal entities known as the corporate world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Brilliant content, Terrible recording quality
Having listened in great detail to hundreds if not thousands of hours of Bucky speaking while writing my book "Buckminster Fuller's Universe", I can say that Bucky does deliver his "basic message," but you have to get through the poor quality recording to get the message.Still, this was one of the last such messages that he delivered, and it does offer hope for humankind as well as each of us as individuals.

Since I know of no other such recorded material available to the general public (a huge omission on behalf of us all), I would actually recommend doing what it takes to hear the message.Also, feel free to skip over all other speakers as they have little to offer and consider reading "Buckminster Fuller's Universe" to get an easily understandable view of the man, his wisdom and his experience.There are many solutions to our "modern problems" in what he was saying and doing decades ago.

Poor Quality
While this offers a wonderful opportunity to hear Buckminster Fuller speak, the recording as a whole is poor quality.I cannot think Bucky would have approved marketing it in the form it is in. The only value is in the voice of this great thinker who left his imprint on the world.Anna

Terrible audo
This lecture is full of worthwhile information, unfortunately the audio quality is so terrible, the microphone isn't working correctly, that it is almost impossible to hear what he is saying. On top of this his speech is slurred due to his age. I doubt that Bucky would have found this product to have any integrity. The producers really should have a statement advising people that the quality is terrible. Buy one of his books, but don't waste money on this CD.

Good introduction to Fuller's ideas
This audio collection is really a live taped conference called an "integrity day". These were lectures in which Bucky explained his logical perspective on Universe, and man's role in it. Its approx. 5 hours long, and contained on 5 discs. I feel its a decent summarization of all that Bucky had learned up to that point.

This collection was taped just months before Bucky passed away and therefore his speaking abilities are somewhat diminished. Though for a man in his mid 80's he's still quite lucid in this recording.

I give it 4 stars because the content is quite interesting and serves as a good introduction. The recording itself is of very poor quality. There is noticable distortion and jack interference. All in all you can still enjoy whats being said, but the recording doesn't help much.

Its a 5 hour recording of one day in the life of Fuller, nothing more, nothing less. If your interested Fuller's ideas, this is a good way to dive in. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

review of nine chains
This was Bucky's first book. The reader will find it clever and imaginative, though rough going due to the technical and philosophical format. The sentences are lengthy and I suggest keeping a dictionary along side.

This work is an eye opener which makes up for its difficulty. If you're looking for a new and convincing perspective of the real forces behind history and evolution, this book is for you.

The main theme is scientific housing and its potential importance in solving many socioeconomic ills as opposed to relying on status quo politics and the legal-financial, money making system.

This book, written during The Great Depression, is STILL way ahead its time and well worth the reader's effort. ... Read more