A Letter from Ken Snelson Regarding Buckminster Fuller and Tensegrity (1990) | Hacker News Reader

A Letter from Ken Snelson Regarding Buckminster Fuller and Tensegrity (1990)

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61 pointsitronitron31 comments

I remember encountering Fuller’s work as a kid in the 70s and wondering what the big deal was. I assumed that I just wasn’t smart enough yet / didn’t know enough yet to appreciate it, but unlike many other things it never planted a seed that eventually changed me. Perhaps it was an emperor’s new clothes situation after all.

(Snelson going to school with Albers seems much more interesting!)

This was written 7 years after Buckminster Fuller died, which means he could not have responded to it.

The letter is rather long and the evidence presented isn't all that strong - at least, not in my view, it's possible that Buckminster Fuller appropriated the concept pioneered by a student, it is just as likely that the student picked up the idea from their college professor.

The letter that is quoted is not presented (it would have been a strong piece of evidence) and the quotes therein are so damning that I wonder if they are the real thing.

For now, not convinced.

edit: the wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Snelson

"Snelson said his former professor Buckminster Fuller took credit for Snelson's discovery of the concept that Fuller named tensegrity. Fuller gave the idea its name, combining 'tension' and 'structural integrity.' Kārlis Johansons had exhibited tensegrity sculptures several years before Snelson was even born. "

Fuller's chief skill was always self-promotion. It was good to get some important ideas into circulation, but they are not better for having his name attached. Geodesic domes, after all, turned out to be far less important than he insisted, and his "dymaxion" car was a hazard at best.

I am completely satisfied to give Snelson credit for what he has brought to our attention.

Also - the first geodesic domes were designed by Walther Bauersfeld over 2 decades before Fuller.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dome_Jena_UnderConst...

The more I learn of him, the less able Fuller seems. I kind of suspected before, but this letter and the Dymaxion car article last week seem to confirm that he was not an engineer or inventor, scarcely an architect and was more a promoter than anything. (I suppose promoters can always call themselves visionaries.)

Met Mandelbrot once. Same energy.

Wolfram, Taleb,...

thx-not Bucky-cancellers, this is a bad day today, to read Wolfram name (met pompous blowhard in person) next to Bucky (grand visionary,before my time)

You know who was genuinely inspiring to meet in person? Chris Zeeman.

I think with ideas the idea being 'out there in pieces' is what makes it happen. Look at the livestream concept, I pioneered it in 1995, I'm aware of one more guy who had the idea around the same time and I am pretty sure that if you dig deep enough and long enough that you'll find more. Video in a browser was going to happen, with or without me, I was just the first by at best a few months. After all a browser required networking and cameras connected to computers were just coming out around that time (mine came courtesy of SGI, which shipped with a weird little camera that helped pioneer the concept).

The Dymaxion has a bad rep but for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the car or its design, and bringing that into the discussion is a bit weird: the safety of the Dymaxion has no bearing on whether or not Buckminster Fuller came up with the Tensegrity concept. What it does do though is to establish him as someone capable of independent thought.

And as the edit above mentions, if we're going to assign credit properly for the Tensegrity concept it should go to Karlis Johansons instead of either Fuller or Snelson, and Fuller should be credited for naming it so.

Don't forget about his "don't bother trying to change people or society because technology will fix it" approach to every major problem, like climate change and environmental damage.

I'm a big fan of Fuller after having read most of his books, and I feel like the recent critical posts about him on YC (including yours) are fundamentally misunderstanding him and what he was trying to do. He was a specific type of visionary- he imagined a very specific type of better future for humanity, and was working backwards from that vision. He had a very specific goal in life: to do the maximum possible to improve humanity's chances of getting into this better future, despite being only one person. He thought of himself, and his life as a "trimtab", a small thing that can steer a larger object by pushing in just the right way. His overarching goal was to make his life an example of how to do this, for others to follow.

I think this philosophy of an individual's ability to make a big difference in the long term was his major contribution. From applying this, he identified and popularized many obscure concepts in geometry (e.g. geodesics, tensegrity) as potential avenues to building a sustainable future- where we could live better with less resources in the distant future. He wasn't the first person to think of these things, but he was the first to explain to people how these types of unusual ideas could be a key to building a better future for humanity. This is visionary leadership- a rare and valuable skill that isn't just self promotion. I would say it's still unclear as to if his ideas will eventually pan out, but if not, I think his type of thinking will inspire others to come up with ideas that will.

Also, the Dymaxion car wasn't a flop at all in my view, it was a prototype that caused a massive shift in how people thought about vehicle design. the VW Bus/Transporter for example was heavily inspired by the Dymaxion car, which was one of the most successful vehicles in history, and further influenced all modern passenger vans. The combination of being aerodynamic, and forward control enabling usable interior space for the entire length of the vehicle with no hood meant you could move a lot of people, or carry a lot of stuff in a small vehicle with far less fuel than previously possible. Forward control is also really useful for safety and visibility in tight maneuvering, and offroad. Most purpose built offroad vehicles use forward control (pinzgauer, SHERP, unimog, etc.)

I think there is a lot of desire to 'cancel' historical tech visionaries like Fuller nowadays, because we are all burned out, depressed, and disengaged- feeling that our efforts have no real effect, and are pointless. It's easier to say people like Fuller didn't really do much, than to admit that we are capable of so much more.

Instead of thinking of him as a con-artist and self promoter, realize that his actions also fit someone that - well into his late 80s, still felt the joy, open mindedness, and limited possibilities that young kids feel, and is usually burned out of us. He was so excited about what was possible!

A post here a week ago of a book review https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-making-of-a-prophet/ got no comments at that time, but caught my eye. It seems the author, Alec Nevala-Lee, of the biography _Inventor of the Future_ about Buckminster Fuller, would agree with you.

The reviewer, Pradeep Niroula, concluded:

Buckminster Fuller’s life is a reminder of two truths: to succeed in America, it really helps to come from a well-connected family; and, with the right marketing, anyone can become an icon. His illustrious life is testament to the influence a single con artist can have over a zeitgeist.

http://kennethsnelson.net/

https://www.artsy.net/artist/kenneth-snelson

It's not a good week to be a Bucky Fuller fan, between this and the Dymaxion Car piece that went by a few days ago.

I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Bucky's contribution is a vision of what he called "Design Science Revolution": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_science_revolution To wit:

Our wealth is not really the material things we make nor the factories that make them, rather it's the immaterial principles and knowledge that gives us leverage over the material world. This wealth is all informational in nature, so it can be freely shared without impoverishing the giver.

If we apply this wealth of knowledge to solving our material problems efficiently, then there is more than enough matter/energy/room for everyone to live with a good standard of living and greatly reduced manual labor. In other words, science and technology wisely applied can create a kind of secular Utopia. (We still have to contend with the human condition, of course.)

Good to know the original inventor of tensegrity envisaged it for its real purpose: pretty toys to look at, instead of the grand engineering revolution it was touted as.

I like tensegrity structures as sculptures and engineering exercises, but do cringe when I see attempts to make things like tensegrity footbridges applying these forms too literally.

There have been some neat robots that walk by changing the cable lengths though.

Viewed through a slightly fuzzy lens we are doing the same thing.

I've had fun building several tensegrity sculptures and I agree that it makes me very wary about bridges built on the idea. They have very unintuitive properties that are difficult to appreciate by just looking at them. They appear to be rigid but are actually springy and without pretensioning they are a floppy mess. It seems to be very non linear too with the structure lacking any rigidity as you tension and then snapping into place at the very end.

There are some very interesting similarities between tensegrities and bio mechanical structures. I used to think of bones as the scaffolding that holds up my meat parts but it's more like the meat parts and the bones work together as a tensegrity structure.

How can I learn to build tensegrity sculptures? Is it something impossible to do without schooling or master-apprenticeship?

You can get started with some rubber bands and soda straws. You just need a lot of patience. That will get you started but there are a limited number of things you can do with that and the rubber bands won't last being under constant tension and will eventually break. It takes a surprisingly small amount of materials, just something for the struts like dowels and some string. The most difficult thing is choosing how to attach the strings to the rods. It takes a lot of adjustment to get the pretensioning correct so you need something that you can change until you get it where you want it.

for a cheap start, chopsticks and twine work just fine.

Do a search for "tensegrity rods two-nails fuller mailing list" seems to produce a fair number of hits.

Also see:

It’s a fun puzzle. The main thing is to only connect the ends of the rods to cables and not to another rod.

This means the rods are under compression only and the cables carry all the tension. That’s the basic idea.

Additionally they tend to avoid the rods even touching, so that it gives more of an illusion of floating elements.

For something like a rubber band the challenge is that it will tend to pull itself apart before you get the final band attached. For cables that don't stretch the challenge will be it will be a gigantic tangled mess until you tension it. I have no idea how Snelson managed to construct the larger sculptures without killing himself.

There is/was a cell biologist, Don Ingber, pushing the idea that cells use tensegrity for their overall structure:

https://journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/116/7/1157/27541...

On the other hand, there are some niches where compression tension, aka tensegrity, may have a practical utility. For example, the current lightest hammock stands are inspired by it. The HandyHammock stands [1][2] use cords to reduce the weight of the poles. Sadly, that model is not manufactured nor sold anymore. The small company Tensa Outdoor makes and sells the Tensa4 [3] which is based on an equilibrium with poles and guy lines. They also have plans for a DIY version [4], called tensahedron stand. The DIY 3-person Hammock Stand from The Ultimate Hang is also inspired by tensegrity [5]. The 3-Pole, 3-Person Tensegrity Stand (DIY) is even more impressive [6].

Although none of them are floating like in the sculptures, the concept and the art inspired some practical constructions.

[1] https://www.ddhammocks.com/images/products/_ALL_PRODUCTS/Ham... [2] https://theultimatehang.com/2012/12/11/handy-hammock-stand-r... [3] https://www.tensaoutdoor.com/product/tensa4-hammock-stand/?v... [4] https://www.tensaoutdoor.com/make-your-own-tensahedron-stand... [5] https://theultimatehang.com/2013/04/02/3-person-hammock-stan... [6] https://sectionhiker.com/portable-hammock-stands-for-camping...

Those hammock stands look pretty cool. I met someone who was experimenting with making his own tables this way. Here's some links [1] [2]

[1] https://www.copper.org/consumers/copperhome/DIY/cu_tensegrit...

[2] https://beltsandboxes.com/top-5-diy-impossible-tensegrity-ta...

design is obvious in hindsight

Assuming it's true, it makes you wonder what other ideas are appropriations. Buckminster-Fullerene / Bucky-balls?

Buckminsterfullerene was discovered after he died, and named after him because of his interest in this type of geometry.

I find your post really irresponsible, and consistent with a general trend of trying to 'cancel' Fuller for taking credit for things which he never actually said or took credit for. Fuller never claimed to have discovered the concept of tensegrity, only specific ideas and example inventions that used the principle.

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