I suppose a lot of "great men" are well known because they self promote. I have a lot less respect for Fuller after I read how he stole the "transegrity" idea from one of his students.
"Bucky's warm and uplifting letter arrived about six months after I first showed him my small sculpture. In that it was dated three days before Christmas, I suppose he was in a festive, generous, mood. A year later, January 1951 he published a picture of the structure in Architectural Forum magazine and, surprisingly, I was not mentioned. When I posed the question some years later why he accredited me, as he said, in his public lectures and never in print, he replied, "Ken, old man, you can afford to remain anonymous for a while.""
Reminds me of the Robin Reliant, here's a video by a popular overseas motoring show that gives you a glimpse of the problems incurred when a high center of gravity is met with 3 wheels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8
1 wheel in back with 2 wheels in front (like the Bucky car has) is actually pretty stable. 2 wheels in the back with one in front (like the Robin) is not.
Vehicle dynamics are hard to get right particularly if you want some sort of suspension. Mr Fuller would likely of gotten things seriously wrong with any number of wheels. Having 4 wheels is not some sort of magic design spec as the article strongly implies. There is a lot of really subtle design that we depend upon in our day to day life that we don't even suspect the existence of...
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 16.3 ms ] thread"Bucky's warm and uplifting letter arrived about six months after I first showed him my small sculpture. In that it was dated three days before Christmas, I suppose he was in a festive, generous, mood. A year later, January 1951 he published a picture of the structure in Architectural Forum magazine and, surprisingly, I was not mentioned. When I posed the question some years later why he accredited me, as he said, in his public lectures and never in print, he replied, "Ken, old man, you can afford to remain anonymous for a while.""
http://www.grunch.net/snelson/rmoto.html