[Chaos-l] "Tensegrity"

[Jon Stewart-Taylor]

Hi all.  "Tensegrity" was originally defined by Kenneth Snelson while  
working with Buckminster Fuller.  Mr. Fuller said:

> The word 'tensegrity' is an invention: a contraction of 'tensional  
> integrity.' Tensegrity describes a structural-relationship principle  
> in which structural shape is guarenteed by the finitely closed,  
> comprehensively continuous, tensional behaviors of the system and  
> not by the discontinuous and exclusively local compressional member  
> behaviors. Tensegrity provides the ability to yield increasingly  
> without ultimately breaking or coming asunder"
>
> - Richard Buckminster Fuller (exerpt from Synergetics, p. 372.)


One of the iconic constructions of tensegrity is the Needle Tower  
outside the Hirshhorn in Washington DC:

    http://tensegrity.wikispaces.com/Needle+Tower

There's a lot of things addressed by tensegrity, and the "wikispaces"  
portal is:

    http://tensegrity.wikispaces.com/

The concepts our speaker was probably invoking might be addressed here:

    http://tensegrity.wikispaces.com/Lungs

and here:

    http://tensegrity.wikispaces.com/Elbow


J.
-- 
Jon Stewart-Taylor:  joncst at earthlink.net
Chapel Hill Astronomy: http://www.rtpnet.org/chaos
Cape Fear Astronomy: http://www.capefearastro.org/