December 18, 2018 • 49 mins
Sometimes a good idea doesn’t pan out in real life. Take Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome: It requires less energy to heat and cool, it’s cheap, and it’s durable enough to withstand a hurricane – but it’s also godawful ugly and that was its undoing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm British Josh.
There's American Chuck, and there's neutral Swizzerland Jerry, which, by
the way, now we're saying Swizzerland Switzerland. I just decided
(00:23):
because it's close to the end of the year and
I'm about to die of exhaustion. I love it. Uh.
On the Friendly Fire Movie podcast, Ben Harrison, you know Ben,
he says, uh, Nazis, Yeah, the Nazis. That's like kind
of like a throwback. It's like the greatest generation way
of saying yeah. And I know he does it as
an affectation, but now I got it from him, and
(00:43):
he got it from god knows where his great grandpa Nazi. Yeah,
that's a pretty great way to because there's a lot
of occasion to say the word Nazi a lot. Hell,
you mentioned this, uh, And why did you say you
were British? Because I say geodesic and you say geodesic
(01:06):
and we just looked it up, which I mean, that's
like the first time in years the lady said geodesic
and I was like, yes, or in America geodesic and
I said, we're both right, but then she didn't say
though it was British, it could be like whatever South African.
I guess, well africannor is not English. Well, yeah, you
(01:26):
know what I mean. We're so far off course already.
Jerry's just got Roman coming through her nose. She thought
that was so funny. Um, thanks for the last, Jerry. Well,
we are talking about geodesic desik. Maybe we should just
say that every time, saying both. I'm sure people would
love that. I'm gonna say geodesic because that's what I've
(01:47):
always said. Okay, great, I'm gonna say geodesic. That's fine. Um,
we're talking about domes, geodesic domes and um. If you
have ever seen a weird contraption of a circular house,
a ball house, you might call it a sphere house.
You've seen a geodesic, don't. If you've ever been to
(02:08):
Epcot um i went when he was a kid, you've
seen a geodesic don't. They're all over the place. Do
you all right? Do you like these as like people's
houses in a neighborhood or wherever? No? I don't either,
But I don't. I mean, I'm not gonna yuck. Anybody's yeah,
you know what I'm so. I mean, when reading and researching,
like they're cool and there are a lot of great advantages,
(02:31):
then that will go over. But I just don't care
for them. Aesthetically. I don't either. And actually, if you
if you um read a quote from Buckminster Fuller, the
guy who actually didn't invent you deseic domes, we'll get
in all that. Anyway. He said, one of the reasons
they never took off is because they're weird looking. They
just are and and well, I'm not gonna say that.
(02:54):
I really tell me later, Okay, Yeah, I just don't
care for him. You know. It's like I'm a crap usman,
California craftsman, bungalow type guy, which is about the opposite
of a geodesic that it's pretty angular for sure, And
the geodesic dome is angular. Everybody put your laptops away,
(03:15):
geometry nerds, but it's not rectangular, and a craftsman is
definitely rectangular. Like you can even make a case the
roof is not a triangle. It's a rectangle on its side.
Mm hmm. I just made that case. How's it going? Yeah,
pretty good? I also, and although I probably will never
live in one, I do love a modern, uh like
(03:37):
a mid century modern. I love it, but I just
it's not really like ultimately where I would want to
live for the rest of my life. Well, okay, so
I don't want to feel like I'm like in Finland
in the winter or something like that. That's not I'm
talking mid century American actually built for a family, and
like the mid fifties early sixties. I love it. The
(04:00):
has all little cool details and built ins in the
wall that doesn't even really need to be there. You
can see right through it because it's like wood spindles,
and that's what I like, not ultra motern, mid century
moter yeah, okay, mid center, Yeah, that's what we call it.
But you still you don't think you could live in
one of those, because I traft we had to get
all new stuff. Like if we started over, like if
(04:22):
our if our god for a bit of our house
burned down and we lost everything, I could start over
like that, But like the stuff that we have doesn't fit,
Like you know understood, Grandma's antique bar doesn't really go
in that setting. I've seen that bar and that thing
is classic. Thank you you could put it anywhere. Grandma
was a bit of a booze hound. Huh. Well, they
didn't use as a bar. They had like humble figurines
(04:44):
and stuff. And I saw it. It was funny. When
I first saw it, I was like, oh God, I
don't really want that, and like they're giving it to us,
And then we turned it to a bar and it
was like, it's amazing, what dirty liquor bottles you can
really dress up a humble figuring cabinet. So clearly we're
talking again about geodesic domes. And there was a period
in time check where you could go into some neighborhoods
(05:05):
around the country and you could find well to do
hippie types, environmental types back to Earth's Um living in
these geodesic domes. And it's not like they were living
in a tent. It was their house had plumbing and
heating and electricity and all this stuff. It's just that
it was a dome. Yeah. There was one near where
(05:26):
I grew up actually, and we would pass it going
to elementary school and it was always just sort of like, yeah,
there's those weirdos that built the weird house. Isn't it interesting? Though?
Like that had some impact on who you are today.
But how minute to how small, but seeing that every
every day or every week day, that had to have
some impact on you. Yeah, and there's was also one
(05:47):
of those. Uh it was also partially underground even so
there was an ex but then that was sort of
built into a hill and so they were full on.
They had a lot of hippie credit. Yeah, they were
going to it and looking back, they were probably super
cool people. Probably they were wearing berkin stocks way before
anybody else is wearing berkin stocks. So let's talk a
(06:07):
little bit about the first geodesic dome, a little geodesic history. Okay,
all right, you you have to go way back, way
way back to and not only do we have to
go back, we have to go to Germany. Jenda, Germany.
I don't know where that is. I don't either, but
there is a very famous optics company called zeissure Um
(06:30):
and Seiss wanted to build a planetarium on top of
one of their factories or factory at Jenna, Germany, and
they said, uh, please build this a planetarium. Walter Bowers
Field where if if you didn't know if he was
German or not, just listen to his name felt even
more German. And he said, sure, let me think about
(06:51):
this and I'll see what I can come up with.
And he came up with what was widely pointed to
as the world's first geodesic dome. Yeah, and it was
a good It was a good idea for this project,
in particular because they needed it to be light, because
it had to go on top of a roof. Um,
they needed to hold a lot of people. And obviously
because it was a planetarium that that interior roundness was
(07:15):
kind of key. Be weird to have a square planetarium,
it would, you know, especially if you're like I didn't
know Venus could take a corner like that. I didn't
know he could do that. Uh, so that's what he did,
and um, it was it really worked well. It did
house a lot of people. I mean not house, but
you know it could hold a lot of people. Uh,
(07:36):
it can withstand storms and this is these are some
of the factors that make them h not only popular,
but like a good idea depending on where you are.
It was like, if you're in Antarctica, they have them
there and that it's perfect for that kind of weather. Yeah,
there was a period in time of which we'll see
in a second, where geodesic don't were like the house
(07:58):
of the future. It was a very very good idea
that never took off because everybody said, no, we think
those are kind of weird, we don't feel comfortable with that,
and pretty much so um uh. Bowersfeld's planetarium actually kicked
off a planetarium craze. It was apparently the first planetarium
on Earth, which I would make the case that you
can just say the first planetarium in the universe that um.
(08:22):
But because there were people who started to build planetariums
as a result of this, gudesic domes kind of became
a thing. But it wasn't until a guy named Richard
Buckminster Fuller of Carbondale, Illinois, very big deal, came along
and actually patented the geodesic dome that they really became
that house of the future thing that I was talking about. Yeah,
(08:43):
and he was an engineer and a sort of a
visionary thinker, one of the great Americans. I think, Um,
we could do a show on him altogether, I think.
But his whole jam was like, well, first of all,
he saw the inherent like good points to the um
and we'll get into all those but first and foremost,
you can you can have a huge volume of space
(09:06):
with very little materials, very lightweight materials, and it's still
be super strong, which is awesome. But so because of this,
he thought like he had a higher goal in mind,
which was like the housing in the future. Like they
don't cost that much money, they can hold you know,
people safely, and like this is how we should think
(09:26):
about housing. Right. You could you could build it off
side at a factory and deliver it by helicopter. Was
that light kind of put it together about like a
kid yep, And like you're saying it required because it
could withstand more weight. Uh, it required less building materials,
which meant it was lower cost um And supposedly you
(09:48):
could put these things like a good kit together in
a day if you were really cruising along at a
good clip. Sure, so had some some high grade sixties
speed give it all. Yeah, um man, you got me
with that one. So so this just became plainly obvious
(10:09):
that this is going to be the house of the future.
There's um One of the other things about it is
there is no other building structure that has a larger
volume of space with the least amount of surface area. Yeah,
and he got this idea through looking at nature. Uh.
He very famously looked at things like crystals and seed
(10:31):
pods and things like that and thought, like, you know nature,
And a lot of people do this in design. They
look to nature because nature has sort of proven to
get it right usually over the years. Yeah. Like if
you look at an eggshell, you're like, this thing shouldn't
withstand anything, and yet it does. And it's a very
curious thing. But it sure looks like it could slip
out of a chicken's butt with ease, which is kind
(10:53):
of what it does. Like, what if it was square,
it slips out of the cloaca. That's true. So um,
Bucky Fuller, as he's known, he apparently I don't know
if he wasn't aware of Bowersfeld's design or something. Did
you get that impression? I don't. I couldn't tell if
this was nefarious. He seemed like a good guy, so
I don't think he like stole this idea, but he
(11:14):
was able to secure a patent. He did. And there's
a really great Time article if you can find it's
called di Maxian. American maxim was a word that was
associated with him. Um, he he just made up words
a lot, but he it tells it. It's from N. Four.
It says that he was trying to figure out a
geometry of energy, and he was using spheres as a
(11:35):
model of energy. No idea, but he was putting spheres together.
And his his idea was that when you put spheres together,
they would just make a larger and larger sphere. But
that's not what happened. If he took a central sphere
and put other spheres around it and pushed it together,
and what he found was that it started to make
squares and triangles rather than a larger sphere. And he
(11:59):
figured out that what he had just come up with
was actually a very smart structure. That you could take
those squares and divide those into triangles, and you could
take the triangles and divide the triangles into even smaller triangles,
and if you kind of curve the edges of the
triangles inward towards some imaginary center inside the sphere and
actually create a sphere. And technically it's a polyhedron, and
(12:21):
most geodesic domes are a cosahedrons, which, if you play
dungeons and Dragons, is just a twenty sided die. But
the more you cut the sides into smaller and smaller triangles,
the more the closer to an actual perfect sphere you
you get. And that's a geodesic sphere. And if you
cut it in half, or cut a portion of it
(12:44):
and just use one half of it, that's a geodesic dome. Yeah,
which is what you see like, Uh, it's not fully
round because it has to be flat and sit on
something right. Well, actually, um, the Spaceship Earth geodesic dome
is a full sphere. But that is pretty rare. Uh.
And I thought it was interesting too, um that they
(13:04):
said that if you were just designing something on paper,
you could just design bigger and bigger and it would
just get stronger and stronger. But in reality, um, that's
really not the case. Like when when rubber meets the road,
they're really there's really only so big you can kind
of get. Yeah, because I had no idea about this,
you know, it's roughly familiar with geodesic domes. I didn't
(13:25):
know any details. But one thing that I was surprised
to find is that the triangles are not all the
same size. They have to be adjusted to make this
shape to make this circle or the sphere. So, um,
if you're putting together one of these things, as we'll see,
you have to be like, oh, this struck goes here,
not here, and I actually put it here up on
(13:47):
the top, and now I have to go take the
whole thing apart again. And yeah, the less complex, the
better impracticality. But yeah, you can really mess with it
to make it virtually a perfect sphere out of triangles. Uh. Yeah,
you mentioned a minute ago that and I think people
that pay attention, we're probably like, oh, Josh is so
funny or what did he just say? Did Buck Minister Fuller? Uh?
(14:10):
Makeup words? He did, because he made up another word
when it comes to these domes, Uh, tin segrity, which
is not a good word, it's not He mixed two
words together at tensional and integrity. Uh. And so that's
the relationship between the tension and compression, and that really
(14:31):
kind of describes how these things fit together and why
they end up being super strong, even though when you
look at it, you're like, man, I could blow that
thing over, right. So let's let's say your break and
then we'll get into like the actual dynamics going on. Okay,
and geometry. Yes, yes, alright, Chuck, I promised it's time
(15:18):
to talk to geometry. How did you do in geometry?
I failed the first time aced to the second time.
I'm actually really glad that I failed it because when
I was forced to take it again by the man.
And this is high school, right, yeah, um, I it clicked.
And I've never understood any field of math like I
understood geometry. I don't quite remember it now, but like
(15:40):
I understood geometry like I was. Pythagoras is like brother,
I kind of I wasn't quite at that level. But
I feel like because I'm I have long sort of
poo poo the maths. Yeah, but you've that right, well yeah,
but I mean just for my my pea brain like
understanding it. I understood geometry more than all the other maths.
(16:00):
And uh I did okay in it for a for
an English nerd. Yeah, you know, good enough, because it's
completely different than anything else. I feel like in the
geometry does seem like its own thing for very much, like, yeah,
there's numbers and sigma makes an appearance and stuff like that,
but it definitely seems to be It's different than algebra.
I'll tell you that buddy shout out to Miss carn
(16:21):
Read In high school. Oh, I wish I could remember
my geometry teacher that when it clicked with she was great.
She was one of those teachers that's like I was
seventy years old. From the time that she was twenty
eight till the time she was seventy, she was great,
and then she turned back into twenty eight. Yeah. She
remember she had this polka dot It's funny the things
that you remember. She had this polka dot shirt where
(16:42):
all the polka dots were collected at the bottom, and
she said that it used to be all over, but
she hung it up to dry. That was her big joke.
She's like, welcome in my class. It's the only joke
of the year. Let's get busy. Yeah, I bet you
there's one person out there who had Miss carn and
knows that shirt. Yeah. I hope it's a great joke,
Miss carn Um. Okay, so we're talking geometry, right, Yeah.
(17:05):
Do you remember our bridges episode. Remember we talked about
bridge trusses, the bridges that are made up of triangular shapes,
and we said, like those things are extraordinarily strong because
their triangles. Same thing here can't beat them. A geodesic
dome or sphere is a sphere made up of triangles,
and if you actually take the triangular shape and build
(17:29):
one in reality, it is one of the strongest shapes
you can um create because wherever you press on it,
it transfers that pressure that forced to the rest of
the shape. So it distributes that kind of weight or
pressure force or whatever you want to lay on on it.
It distributes it evenly. And if you put another triangle
(17:51):
together with one triangle, it sends it to the other
triangle too, And so the more triangles you add, the
more a force is distributed throughout. And that's basically it.
That's why it's so strong. Like what you were saying,
like you look at it and you're like, I could
blow that over. You might be able to push it
over and make it roll away if it's a sphere,
but you you probably could not break it. Yeah, And
(18:15):
when you look at like if you're inside one of these,
it's usually covered with like wood or drywall or something,
so it's not as evident, but on the outside you
generally can still see this frame of triangles all fitting
together beautifully to make something super super strong. Yes, and
apparently the strongest version of a geodesic dome or sphere
(18:39):
um is one that's actually made not just out of triangles,
but out of pyramids. If you look at if you
look at the Epcot Spaceship Earth Geodesic sphere, it's actually pyramids.
All the triangles are actually Yeah, that is that's it.
That's the money geodesic dome. Yeah, and that one, since
(19:00):
we're on that is interesting and that uh one of
the downfalls and we'll go over more later, but one
of the downfalls of geodesic domes is sometimes rain doesn't
treat them well. But the one at Epcot was just like,
we're not even gonna pretend that we want to repel
the rain. They have little grooves that actually collect the
rain and that send it to one of those uh
(19:22):
little corny lagoons. I love those, I know, I love
everything about Epcot. I haven't been since I was in
seventh grade. I mean, did they update it or is
it still very much like the World of Tomorrow today?
You know they've updated it. I mean the whole thing
is still like that. Yeah, but there's like newer stuff,
Like there's a really cool um ride an immersive ride
(19:46):
called Soaring, where like you get lifted up and you're
in front of this huge, giant curved movie screen and
you're like, so soaring through this like the world, like
a world tour. It's really neat, And did they move
your little thing around so you feel like you're you
definitely feel like you're soaring through there. Yeah, that's like
the when they debuted that Back to the Future ride
(20:07):
years ago. Was it like that. Yeah, you sit in
the DeLorean and it's on hydraulics and it's like moving
all around, but it's a movie screen in front of Yeah,
and you're and you're going through. But it's it's amazing
how like accurate they can sync that up to where
you really feel like, like I remember that was at
one point where the car was on the edge of
a cliff and it was sort of teetering and it
got really quiet, and then it teetered over and then
(20:29):
it the car just stopped moving and he felt like
you were falling just because it stopped moving. And if
you like turned around and look backwards, you're like everyone's
freaking out and you're just sitting in a car doing nothing,
but everybody's going it was so great. I loved it.
So we were saying, like this this thing pops up
all over nature. Yeah, the geodesic dome did. This Time
(20:51):
magazine put article put it really beautifully that, Um, it
was like Buckminster Fuller had discovered a signature of God,
who has made scared quotes because God ended the whole thing.
Since it is such like a an efficient structure that
can support a lot of weight, you do see it
in things like eggs Cornia testicle, which I'm like, sure, really,
(21:17):
I guess so I couldn't find that anywhere else, and
I definitely typed testical geodesic dome into Google and it
didn't really come back with anything. But this nineteen four
Time article says it. So it's so well, the dome
period is a pretty strong structure. Um. The Romans were
building really big, strong domes a long long time ago,
(21:40):
but they don't stay strong for long. That's sort of
one of the problems with the dome just a regular dome,
is that you need a lot of super heavy supporting
materials and walls to keep it up, and over time
they wear out. But uh, what Fuller did was took
that sort of same principle and applied this geometry to
it and triangles that the Romans you know, didn't think of,
(22:03):
and the rest is history, I guess. Yeah. What what
he found was that when you put these fears together,
you you created what he called the vector equilibrium, the
outward force of the thing that's trying to collapse it.
You know, like if you if you could press down
on the roof of the house, it would collapse outward
to the sides. The same thing wants to happen to
(22:25):
geodesic dome. But in a geodesic dome, that pressure outward
from the force of gravity is actually equal to the
force that's being distributed around it, the circumferential force, And
since they're equal and equal measures, they cancel each other out.
(22:47):
So it's just like the thing is gravity free. Yeah,
I mean you see, you definitely see why he was
like this is the house of the future. Because they
were cheap, they were strong, they were a lightweight, and
you know they distribute, uh, like heat just blows around
them because around they're really efficient to heat and cool.
(23:08):
There are a lot of really great advantages to them. Yeah,
and so when he I can't remember when he made
his first one, I think it was at a World's fair.
Was that the Montreal was at the first one. No,
Montreal was sixty seven. This one would have been in Moscow. Um,
well that's when he got his patent. Yeah, I guess
(23:28):
this would have been before the right around the same time.
But in Yeah, I guess the first one must have
been Ford, the Ford plant. Yeah, the Ford Motor Company
wanted covering um and he said, well, I think this
is the trick and he and he built it. He
was like, I can, and this is what Ford wants
(23:49):
to hear or any company. He was like, it'll be
better and cheaper, and I'll get it done faster than
any of these other schmucks. And so bear in mind
that when when Ford called him from Dearborn, Michigan, that
they no one had ever come up with this before.
They thought since they wanted to enclose their courtyard, the
central courtyard and rotunda that they'd built, um, that it
(24:12):
was gonna have to be a traditional dome with buttresses
and supports and like heavy walls and all. That The
problem was because the court was so far across. I
think it was more than thirty meters ninety ft across. Um.
Anything that they built would probably collapse the walls of
this very sturdy rotunda building. So they had a problem.
(24:33):
And when they called buck Mr Fuller, I don't know
how who got in touch with who. Um, it was
pretty brazen for him to say, what what you said?
He said that he can get this done below cost,
in time, it's gonna be super light. And he proved
the world wrong, his doubters wrong, at least when he
built the first geodesic dome over and it was pretty awesome. Also,
(24:57):
we didn't mention he was a freshman, a freshman college dropout. Um,
so he's self taught and he just came along and
showed the world of engineering basically a brand new type
of structure and incredibly elegantly efficient type of structure. He
just showed the world it could be done. Yeah, some
people are just born with like a certain kind of brain.
(25:19):
That's why he deserves his own episode for sure. So
the forward, uh dumb was was great for a while
until nine two when it was leaking and they said, hey,
this thing is leaking, we need to do some repair work.
So they were doing that and they were waterproofing and
weatherproofing the panels and they were using a waterproof see
(25:39):
through transparent waterproof sealer. But to make it easier to spray,
they heated it up, which makes sense, but unfortunately those
vapors ignited from a propane heater. This thing caught on fire,
and I get the idea that it was like the
whole thing was done in like an hour. Yeah, because
(25:59):
they sealed a lot of it with the waterproofing, the
highly flammable waterproofing stuff. So when a little bit called
it was vapors caught, the whole dome caught fire. And
it was made of like aluminum in plastic, so it
just went up like a match. And they were decorating
for the Christmas fantasy exhibit below in the courtyard. All
that stuff caught on fire. It burned, the whole roof
(26:21):
tunded down. Imagine there's nothing more flammable than Christmas decorations
in the early night a chance. Yeah, it was really sad.
Everyone got out of there, which is good, but by
the time the fire department got there, it was too late.
It was toast fifty ft flames like I can't imagine
what that scene looked like, and it burned the whole
building down. Like this was actually a tourist attraction. And
(26:45):
do you imagine going to Dearborn, Michigan to see the Yes,
that's what people did. I think it's seen like eighteen
million visitors in like it's twenty or thirty years of operation.
And this this waterproofing fixed burned the whole thing down
at Christmas time. So this I love how this article
kind of brushes over it says no matter buck Mr
(27:06):
Fuller's geodesic dome had shown that it could be done. Yeah,
it bears a little more digging in that for sure,
but it is true like he had shown the world
there's this thing, and we should start making them because
they are efficient, cheap, affordable and highly transportable. And apparently
next the next people to call was the military because
(27:28):
they wanted to start using them as like antarctic basis
or to cover radar dishes, that kind of thing. Yeah,
he very famously too in nineteen sixty seven, at now
was this the World's Fair? There's this a different thing.
They just didn't call it World's fair, right. The Universal
Exposition in Montreal UH in sixty seven very famously had
a two ft tall dome uh and he was he
(27:52):
was really trying to push the limits of what you
could do. Like he he dreamed of enclosing part of
Manhattan and a dome and ing, we could give you
clean air and climate control and it'll pay for itself
over time because you won't have to use snowplows and
all these other like things that cost money. It seems ghastly,
almost like a burnse In type of of idea. Well
(28:14):
it would, I mean there would definitely be a certain
class of people that lived in that thing. Yeah, but
it's done. If he'd be like, we'll do it overall
of you know queens, right, Well, yeah, it was lower.
It was twenty second to sixty two I think from
river to river in Manhattan. Wow, it was. It was
gonna be huge. And he did say it could pay
for itself just from snow removal, not having to snow removal,
(28:35):
but imagine not having precipitation ever. It's just it's it's wrong,
there's something wrong with that. But it really captures the
can do engineering spirit of of mid century America for sure. Yeah.
I mean, you can do a cool experiment with like
a biosphere type of thing, but you don't want Manhattan
covered by a dome, you know, all the all the smells,
(28:57):
maybe t Peeka or something like that. And that's one
of the problems, is all the smells apparently, like did
they just fill up that dome? There's nothing to stop it, right, Yeah,
the sewer gas accumulating at the top and eventually exploding. Yeah,
no good the ghostbusters running around shooting off pro tom
packs inside that thing. No good man, it's been a
while since a g B ref. Should we take a break,
(29:20):
all right, we'll be right back, chuck. Alright, So the
(29:51):
sixties and seventies come along. He's been doing a sing
in the fifties, and this is when the uh, the
counterculture and the anti mainstream sort of vibe was hitting,
and so it was sort of prime sort of primed
for these things to come into fashion. And they did,
just for regular old houses. Yeah, they didn't sweep the nation, no,
(30:11):
but you know, there were enough people looking for ways
to very blatantly thumb their nose that they established look
at my round house basically, yeah, and and and again,
like it really does. It does provide a lot of
um benefits that other ones don't. Right, So, like because
it's a it's a sphere, and it's basically one big room. Well, yes,
(30:34):
but you can build rooms inside of you can't UM.
But the heat in the um, the air distribution is
really efficient, so it's very cheap to heat and cool.
I think that the average number that people are reported
was about a thirty savings in um energy cost. That
sounds totally made up, it does, but I saw as
(30:57):
high as fifty, and it seems like the world said, no,
we'll go a third UM. And so you've got heating
and cooling efficiencies, like you were saying, because it's a round,
it's not trying to stop wind like cool wind, hot
wind when it runs into your house. If it's a
rectangular house craftsman, mid century modern, who cares it runs
(31:20):
into it and it's going to transfer heat or cold
into your house? Yeah, in my case right through my windows,
and okay, yeah, it's a great, great example. The thing
is is you don't want that heat or that cool
in there usually, so you're gonna have to spend a
lot of money to artificially pump it out right through
a c um with with a geodesic dome. The the
(31:42):
wind kind of just moves around it. It's super aerodynamic,
so it's not just running into this flat surface and
trying to go through. It's just like, yeah, excuse me,
I'll just go around. Yeah, and that's why they're great
in Antarctica. Um, they can withstand whatever kind of weather
they throw they Antarctica A and I have seen some
of these at the beach. Um. Again, they're not like
(32:06):
the coolest looking beach house, but you see him, you know,
you'll see like quaint old beach house, cape cod geodesic
dome and then like mcmanchin and I imagine they do
very well at the beach. Yeah, because after a hurricane,
if a hurricane is bad enough, you see empty lot,
empty lot, dome, empty lot, and apparently that's that's it's anecdotal,
(32:29):
but that's the been reported that geodesec domes can make
it through substantial hurricanes when the rest of the houses
around it did not. Yeah, it makes sense. Um. Some
of the disadvantages is like we're joking about the smell,
but it's really true smell and sound. If you've just
got a big globe that you're inside, are really going
to move around. Uh, there's not a ton of privacy,
(32:52):
even though you can build out sort of like living
in aloft, you know, you can build out rooms, but
if your rooms don't have a ceiling, although I guess
you could do that too, you could, but then you're like, well,
you know, like why I'm I even in a exactly
uh light as well. Um, that's a big one. Yeah,
you know, like the little light on your router that's
like really bright at night. Imagine that just being distributed
(33:16):
throughout your entire house. Yeah. No, good, No, that's not
a good one. Plus, I mean, if you look at
any piece of furniture that's ever been created in the
history of humanity, it's all meant for rectangular structures. Yeah,
unless it's some sort of custom piece for a geodesic tone,
which is very expensive. Yeah, you have to get all
this stuff made yourself. And the same goes true for uh,
(33:37):
Like the construction world is set up for square uh,
so fixtures and and plumbing and pipes and all that
stuff has to be sort of uh and contractors get
scared away from these sayings, Oh yeah, they won't come
near it. Yeah unless you're just a specialist. Sure, and
you're probably like the highest paid contractor in the world
who works like once a year. Yes, um, but those
(34:01):
same disadvantages are also advantages, right, Like you have a
lot more floor space. Yeah, but sometimes it's wasted. It
can be like if you've got a a big long couch,
you've got a bunch of space behind it that's just
sitting there a little, a little semi circle behind you.
That's why a lot of and I think this is
the reason why I'm not super hip on geodesic Jones
(34:22):
is um. A lot of the stuff is just kind
of out in the center of the room right right,
and it looks adrift or un anchored. That's a good
thing about a wall or a corner or something like that.
It provides a visual anchor to your stuff. No one
can sneak up on you. No, that's maybe that's why
I don't like it. I'm like, what's what's behind me?
Do you like your back against the wall in a restaurant? No?
(34:45):
I don't care about that, man, do you? Yeah? Really,
you're afraid you're gonna get what? Are you a gangster
or something? Now? I don't think I'm gonna get whacked.
It's just I just feel exposed. And Emily is very sweet.
She's usually like, go ahead and take the seat, but
lately she's been like no, that's mine. Oh yeah, nothing, man,
it's just the time we're living in. She's doing it.
(35:08):
So do you sit there and like turn around every
time somebody comes in the waiter comes in and a
punch of my chain around and punch of don't touch
my stuff. Uh. Rain, We talked about rain. Um, it
can be problematic. H And it says in here that
flat roofs are the best. What they mean are flat
roofs at an angle because the truly flat roof it's
(35:29):
not good. Frank Lloyd Wright did a bunch of those,
and they were his. His houses were could be very problematic.
He had the very famous exchange. I can't remember the
the person, but it was some very very wealthy, sort
of noteworthy person. Frank Lloyd Wright built in a house
and he called and complained and said, the waters is
now dripping onto my desk, and supposedly Frankloyd Wright said,
(35:53):
moved the desk. And that sounds like frankly right, Yeah
for sure. I don't know if that's a true story,
but true. Um, so with with the with a shingle roof,
even with the flat roof, like a flat roof is
not moving water, but it's probably not coming down. There's
not as many places for it to come down with
a geodesic dome. Every place where your struts, the sides
(36:18):
of the triangle come together at an angle at the nodes,
there is a point where water can get in and
actually can get in along where one triangle goes into another.
There's a lot of places for water to penetrate the
geodesic dome. It's a water nightmare from what I can tell. Well,
let's put together from a lot of little panels. Yeah,
(36:40):
so let's let's just really briefly say that. So one
of the things, one of the reasons why people were
crazy for geodesic domes is you could put them together,
like we said in a day. Yeah, you can get
a color coded kit. You still can, and there are
companies out there that will send them to you, and
you can get your friends, get some good sixties speed
in the case of beer or two, and build your
(37:02):
house in a couple of days and not sleep the
entire time. Um. So, when you when you put these
things together, you're you're building the structure and then you're
coding the structure. It can be one kid I saw
as a greenhouse, it's a really great greenhouse. If you've
ever been on a jungle gym that was built after
the sixties, those dome ones geodesic don't um. But what
(37:26):
the structure can be made from, like a hollow tubing,
ply or um, two by fours, whatever, it can be, wood,
it can be whatever. And then usually the outside the
triangles that fill in over the structure concrete or plastic
or plywood or something like that. Then you want to
coat it. But all those different seals or those different seams,
(37:48):
they're all just water heaven um, which is again a
big problem. We probably problem number one practically speaking. Yeah,
it's interesting now that I think about it. It's sort
of how tent design has gone over the years. Tints
used to be just like camping tents, just like triangles,
like a pup tent, and then the big dome tents
(38:11):
came into fashion, and then I think the secret was
to try and make dome tents with his few seems
as possible because that's where your water gets in, and
a few poles too, Yeah, just a couple of and
then maybe and then you got you got your tent.
You could be a tent designer. I did I want
(38:33):
to go ahead and trademark what I just said. Okay,
should we talk about some famous domes. I think we
should because that's always the best part. There's the Expo
six s one that, by the way, burned as well.
Now the structure stayed. They turned it into a biosphere
in the nineties. I believe so Brendan Fraser lists in
there and Stephen Baldwin sure man alive that's where he's been. Uh.
(39:00):
There is the in these to me, like if you
look up the how do you pronounce the one in Japan,
the Fukuoka Yahoo Oko Dome was at the full name
Yahoo Oku with an exclamation point because Yahoo is the
sponsor rights. Yeah, so that is a baseball stadium. But
(39:20):
when you look at these like I don't like, to me,
I think of Epcot. When you look at this baseball stadium,
it doesn't feel I mean, it is a geodesic dome,
but it just doesn't feel like that kind of futuristic
like highly paneled triangular thing. Well, what's cool about it
is the dome part actually retracts in like twenty minutes.
(39:42):
And the reason to retracts so quickly is because it's
so lightweight comparatively speaking, yeah, so it's pretty sweet. There's
Thema Dome, yeah, which is a wood dome that just
does not sound sturdy to me. Yeah, what was it? Oh?
Our Skyscrapers episode? Was that that new Wood skyscraper somewhere? Uh?
(40:03):
Why do I want to say, like Nebraska? I thought
that was Japan too? Oh was it? I think? So
it's one of the two. Right, it's easy to get
him confused. Osaka Nebraska. They sound alike. Uh. The Tacoma
Dome is where the Sonics used to play. They're like
Kevin Durant gonna love this. Oh man, so sad. Uh.
(40:26):
I wonder when a team leaves. I've always wondered if
they just because I know, like when the Browns left
and became the Ravens. You know, my stepfather was like
they were just dead to me. Wait what Yeah, that's
where the Ravens came from. They were the Cleveland Browns
where the Browns. The Browns aren't playing still, no, no, no,
they they the Browns had no There were no Browns
(40:47):
for years, and then they came back and said, we'll
give you a team again, Cleveland, and you can be
the Browns again. But he art model literally famously packed
up in the middle of the night, like their footage
of eighteen wheeler trucks at like two a um like
hauling stuff. You don't want to leave Cleveland, esk Lebron.
But they were dead to him after that, And I
always wonder, like, if the Falcons left Atlanta and went
(41:08):
to Birmingham, they'd still be the same guys. I would
I wouldn't be like, no, screw that team. No, That's
definitely how I went with. Yeah, they were Sattle was
not very happy about that. They were not. Supposedly they're
going to get another team. One of the Microsoft founders,
I guess was in the act is talking about bringing them.
(41:30):
Somebody from Microsoft is going to bring a team. They're saying,
what was it, Paul Allen? I don't think so. He
just passed away though, right, Maybe it was Paul Allen.
I mean he owned the Sonics, I think, but he
was from Microsoft. I'm just getting all confused now. No,
I think Paul Allen was Bill Gates partner. He died. Yeah,
(41:50):
I think he died kind of in the last like
six months. Well, maybe Seattle is not getting a basketball team,
I'm not sure. Okay, where did they go oh Oklahoma City? Right? Yeah, Oh,
it's so confusing everyone for two half sports guys like us,
you don't even make a full sports guy. Who's your
team this season? Well? I always read for the Hawks,
but it's just there a waste land. It's pretty bag.
(42:13):
So I don't even care. Who do Shrewder play for? Now?
Does he? Oh? I thought it was a different Western team,
you like Lebron in l A. Sure we should have
a sports show called the Worst Sports Show on the
Web kind of. This is a trailer for it. Uh
what about the Eden project? That? That one's pretty cool?
(42:34):
And aren't there two of these? And there one in
China as well? I think they're going to open one
in China. I think there's a third one they're opening,
but the one that the original ones in corn Cornwall,
I'm sorry, canal cornhole in in the u K. God
knows how you pronounce that. I guarantee it's not Cornwall's
probably Cornwall maybe. Um, this one's really cool though. This
(42:57):
is one where you look it up and you're like,
this is what you should be doing. And within geodesic dome,
like uh experimentation, they build a diome or biome That's
one of the points of a geodesic dome is you
can create a different climate inside a larger climate. It's
a bubble. You're creating a climate bubble. That's what the
Eden Project did at least, and they have two of them.
(43:19):
They've got a tropical biome and then a smaller Mediterranean
biomes and they're just beautiful, lots of amazing plants and
waterfalls and just great stuff. Apparently it's a wonderful tourist attraction.
I would go. I think there's also a witchcraft museum
in Cornwall that I want to go to. Let's do it, man,
all right, we're going road trip. We gotta do a
(43:40):
UK tour again. Yeah, that was awesome, and then we'll
detour off to Cornwall. Maybe do a show there. How
many people are there Cornwall? Let us know if we
should do a show there. Let's do a live show
inside the tropical biome. That'd be cool. I wonder if
we could set that up. We could also do in
a upcut too well, do well do a geodesic dome tour?
Can we do one inside of the castle and the
(44:01):
magic can ask? You have connections there? Right? Yeah? Friend
Brandon that's right. Who built my site, the Josh clarkway
dot com. I know I'm gonna have to get in
touch with him as my kid gets older. I have
to finally drag Emily down there. He will happily help
you out. Here's a great guy. He help brother. Oh
and by the way, I'm glad you brought that up.
Congratulations to Brandon and Katie on the birth of their
(44:24):
first ever child. Wo Yes, Cooper born into Disney Royalty. Yeah,
pretty much, it's pretty great. Congrats dudes. I wonder if
Cooper is going to go up and just be like,
yeah and take care to leave it. I go like
twice a week. Right, this is euro Disney. I wish
it Disney. Uh. Well, that is Spaceship Earth, of course,
is the one we're talking about there that we mentioned.
(44:44):
A hundred and eighty feet tall silver geosphere very much
the central sort of shining star of Epcot. That's why
everybody thinks of with Epcot on every shirt, well not
every shirt. But did you know that God as an acronym? Chuck?
I did, but I remembered that from when I was
(45:05):
a kid, but I can't remember now. What is it?
Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow and the name of the
geodesic dome is actually called Spaceship Earth and it was
directly influenced by Bucky Fuller. Um. Walt Disney was a
big futurist. That's why there's like tomorrow Land and all
that stuff, and why there's upcotton in general. Um. But
(45:26):
not only did he inspire Spaceship Earth. The name Spaceship
Earth comes from a Bucky Fuller essay kind of a
novella called an Operating Manual for a Spaceship Earth. You
can find the PDF for free on the web and
get a pretty good idea of Bucky Fuller's whole jam.
(45:46):
You know what I heard. I heard that that very
famous Walt Disney signature is not his signature and believe
that a cartoonist designer came up with that. It's too perfect.
I could totally see that. I'm not I'm not affected
by that. I'm okay with it. Oh really, he's not
just a big fraud now in your mind. Basically I
(46:08):
let him off the hook. Uh. If you want to
know more about g desic domes, go make friends with
a hippie. And since I said that, it's time for
listener mail. I'm gonna call one of our new young fans.
Got a very sweet email from Veronica. Hey, guys, I'm Veronica,
fifteen years old and I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana. I just
(46:28):
heard about Sarah, the thirteen year old super fan. Who's yeah,
Sarah's she's Miss carn Um, and I too, am a
super fan. I started listening when I was nine or
ten with my mom every once in a while. Then
I got an iPod and started listening to you regularly
when I was eleven. I love listening to the show
when I'm getting ready in the morning and I'm going
to school. We're going to sleep before bed. Every time
(46:51):
you guys do a tour announcement, I always hope you're
gonna say somewhere close, like within two hours of Indianapolis.
But I don't think that has ever happened. Dude, Cleveland
is not that far from Indianapolis. I took a break
from podcast for about two months, but I missed listening
to them, so I came back and now and back
regularly again. I just want to stop in and say hi.
If I'm lucky, I'll make it to the podcast, but
(47:12):
I don't expect it. Just keep being you, guys, because
I love to learn about the four different types of
cat hair, the fact that cinnamon is a type of
tree bark, perfume is made from whale vomit, and eurosol
is what makes poison ivy so itchy. Wow, my mom
really likes your beard, Chuck, and she hopes that someone
gives you some beard lights for Christmas. Oh. I saw those.
(47:32):
If you don't know what they are, they're just little
ornaments that you hang in your beard. Have you seen them?
And they light up super festive? Do you want some? Okay,
I cut most of my beard off. I just noticed
that it looks very trim. This is sort of like
the old days. Looks nice. Uh. And that is she
put a sign to Veronica, which is adorable. Thank Veronica,
so Veronica. I think we should. We were trying to
(47:53):
hit the major cities we've never been to. Eventually, I
think we might want to put Indianapolis on the list
for nine oh boy and uh and give Indiana some love.
This year, we were like, I don't know, Salt Lake City, Phoenix,
and they were great. It's true. Well, to be honest,
Salt Lake City came out for us. They email us
(48:15):
there like, yes, please come. We got such an overwhelming
response that we're like, how could we say no? So
we should go to Indianapolis. I told her, if we do,
then we'll put her in mom on the guest lists.
Very nice, dumb, they're settled. We could We could go
to a show there where the cults play. Is it
the Colts? What do they play? Soccer? Yeah, but they
came from Baltimore. It then became the Ravens. It's just
(48:36):
so weird. Everyone's moving all over the place. Who's the
great leader of um the Pacers? Now Victor Um the
great leader? Yeah, great leader? Kim John Victor another coach? No, no,
he's like the captain. But yeah, he's a player. I
don't know, Ron artest fixer. Now Victor Borgia, Yes, Victor
(48:59):
Borgia is now anyway, we're going to list him to
once I remember his last name, because he's a Victoria player.
If you want to know, well, I already said that
if you want to get in touch with us, you
can go to stuff you Should Know dot com and
you will find all of our social links there. I
don't know if I said it or not already, but
I got a website too, it's called the Josh Clark
Way dot com, and you can always send us an
(49:21):
email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
it how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm British Josh.
There's American Chuck, and there's neutral Swizzerland Jerry, which, by
the way, now we're saying Swizzerland Switzerland. I just decided
(00:23):
because it's close to the end of the year and
I'm about to die of exhaustion. I love it. Uh.
On the Friendly Fire Movie podcast, Ben Harrison, you know Ben,
he says, uh, Nazis, Yeah, the Nazis. That's like kind
of like a throwback. It's like the greatest generation way
of saying yeah. And I know he does it as
an affectation, but now I got it from him, and
(00:43):
he got it from god knows where his great grandpa Nazi. Yeah,
that's a pretty great way to because there's a lot
of occasion to say the word Nazi a lot. Hell,
you mentioned this, uh, And why did you say you
were British? Because I say geodesic and you say geodesic
(01:06):
and we just looked it up, which I mean, that's
like the first time in years the lady said geodesic
and I was like, yes, or in America geodesic and
I said, we're both right, but then she didn't say
though it was British, it could be like whatever South African.
I guess, well africannor is not English. Well, yeah, you
(01:26):
know what I mean. We're so far off course already.
Jerry's just got Roman coming through her nose. She thought
that was so funny. Um, thanks for the last, Jerry. Well,
we are talking about geodesic desik. Maybe we should just
say that every time, saying both. I'm sure people would
love that. I'm gonna say geodesic because that's what I've
(01:47):
always said. Okay, great, I'm gonna say geodesic. That's fine. Um,
we're talking about domes, geodesic domes and um. If you
have ever seen a weird contraption of a circular house,
a ball house, you might call it a sphere house.
You've seen a geodesic, don't. If you've ever been to
(02:08):
Epcot um i went when he was a kid, you've
seen a geodesic don't. They're all over the place. Do
you all right? Do you like these as like people's
houses in a neighborhood or wherever? No? I don't either,
But I don't. I mean, I'm not gonna yuck. Anybody's yeah,
you know what I'm so. I mean, when reading and researching,
like they're cool and there are a lot of great advantages,
(02:31):
then that will go over. But I just don't care
for them. Aesthetically. I don't either. And actually, if you
if you um read a quote from Buckminster Fuller, the
guy who actually didn't invent you deseic domes, we'll get
in all that. Anyway. He said, one of the reasons
they never took off is because they're weird looking. They
just are and and well, I'm not gonna say that.
(02:54):
I really tell me later, Okay, Yeah, I just don't
care for him. You know. It's like I'm a crap usman,
California craftsman, bungalow type guy, which is about the opposite
of a geodesic that it's pretty angular for sure, And
the geodesic dome is angular. Everybody put your laptops away,
(03:15):
geometry nerds, but it's not rectangular, and a craftsman is
definitely rectangular. Like you can even make a case the
roof is not a triangle. It's a rectangle on its side.
Mm hmm. I just made that case. How's it going? Yeah,
pretty good? I also, and although I probably will never
live in one, I do love a modern, uh like
(03:37):
a mid century modern. I love it, but I just
it's not really like ultimately where I would want to
live for the rest of my life. Well, okay, so
I don't want to feel like I'm like in Finland
in the winter or something like that. That's not I'm
talking mid century American actually built for a family, and
like the mid fifties early sixties. I love it. The
(04:00):
has all little cool details and built ins in the
wall that doesn't even really need to be there. You
can see right through it because it's like wood spindles,
and that's what I like, not ultra motern, mid century
moter yeah, okay, mid center, Yeah, that's what we call it.
But you still you don't think you could live in
one of those, because I traft we had to get
all new stuff. Like if we started over, like if
(04:22):
our if our god for a bit of our house
burned down and we lost everything, I could start over
like that, But like the stuff that we have doesn't fit,
Like you know understood, Grandma's antique bar doesn't really go
in that setting. I've seen that bar and that thing
is classic. Thank you you could put it anywhere. Grandma
was a bit of a booze hound. Huh. Well, they
didn't use as a bar. They had like humble figurines
(04:44):
and stuff. And I saw it. It was funny. When
I first saw it, I was like, oh God, I
don't really want that, and like they're giving it to us,
And then we turned it to a bar and it
was like, it's amazing, what dirty liquor bottles you can
really dress up a humble figuring cabinet. So clearly we're
talking again about geodesic domes. And there was a period
in time check where you could go into some neighborhoods
(05:05):
around the country and you could find well to do
hippie types, environmental types back to Earth's Um living in
these geodesic domes. And it's not like they were living
in a tent. It was their house had plumbing and
heating and electricity and all this stuff. It's just that
it was a dome. Yeah. There was one near where
(05:26):
I grew up actually, and we would pass it going
to elementary school and it was always just sort of like, yeah,
there's those weirdos that built the weird house. Isn't it interesting? Though?
Like that had some impact on who you are today.
But how minute to how small, but seeing that every
every day or every week day, that had to have
some impact on you. Yeah, and there's was also one
(05:47):
of those. Uh it was also partially underground even so
there was an ex but then that was sort of
built into a hill and so they were full on.
They had a lot of hippie credit. Yeah, they were
going to it and looking back, they were probably super
cool people. Probably they were wearing berkin stocks way before
anybody else is wearing berkin stocks. So let's talk a
(06:07):
little bit about the first geodesic dome, a little geodesic history. Okay,
all right, you you have to go way back, way
way back to and not only do we have to
go back, we have to go to Germany. Jenda, Germany.
I don't know where that is. I don't either, but
there is a very famous optics company called zeissure Um
(06:30):
and Seiss wanted to build a planetarium on top of
one of their factories or factory at Jenna, Germany, and
they said, uh, please build this a planetarium. Walter Bowers
Field where if if you didn't know if he was
German or not, just listen to his name felt even
more German. And he said, sure, let me think about
(06:51):
this and I'll see what I can come up with.
And he came up with what was widely pointed to
as the world's first geodesic dome. Yeah, and it was
a good It was a good idea for this project,
in particular because they needed it to be light, because
it had to go on top of a roof. Um,
they needed to hold a lot of people. And obviously
because it was a planetarium that that interior roundness was
(07:15):
kind of key. Be weird to have a square planetarium,
it would, you know, especially if you're like I didn't
know Venus could take a corner like that. I didn't
know he could do that. Uh, so that's what he did,
and um, it was it really worked well. It did
house a lot of people. I mean not house, but
you know it could hold a lot of people. Uh,
(07:36):
it can withstand storms and this is these are some
of the factors that make them h not only popular,
but like a good idea depending on where you are.
It was like, if you're in Antarctica, they have them
there and that it's perfect for that kind of weather. Yeah,
there was a period in time of which we'll see
in a second, where geodesic don't were like the house
(07:58):
of the future. It was a very very good idea
that never took off because everybody said, no, we think
those are kind of weird, we don't feel comfortable with that,
and pretty much so um uh. Bowersfeld's planetarium actually kicked
off a planetarium craze. It was apparently the first planetarium
on Earth, which I would make the case that you
can just say the first planetarium in the universe that um.
(08:22):
But because there were people who started to build planetariums
as a result of this, gudesic domes kind of became
a thing. But it wasn't until a guy named Richard
Buckminster Fuller of Carbondale, Illinois, very big deal, came along
and actually patented the geodesic dome that they really became
that house of the future thing that I was talking about. Yeah,
(08:43):
and he was an engineer and a sort of a
visionary thinker, one of the great Americans. I think, Um,
we could do a show on him altogether, I think.
But his whole jam was like, well, first of all,
he saw the inherent like good points to the um
and we'll get into all those but first and foremost,
you can you can have a huge volume of space
(09:06):
with very little materials, very lightweight materials, and it's still
be super strong, which is awesome. But so because of this,
he thought like he had a higher goal in mind,
which was like the housing in the future. Like they
don't cost that much money, they can hold you know,
people safely, and like this is how we should think
(09:26):
about housing. Right. You could you could build it off
side at a factory and deliver it by helicopter. Was
that light kind of put it together about like a
kid yep, And like you're saying it required because it
could withstand more weight. Uh, it required less building materials,
which meant it was lower cost um And supposedly you
(09:48):
could put these things like a good kit together in
a day if you were really cruising along at a
good clip. Sure, so had some some high grade sixties
speed give it all. Yeah, um man, you got me
with that one. So so this just became plainly obvious
(10:09):
that this is going to be the house of the future.
There's um One of the other things about it is
there is no other building structure that has a larger
volume of space with the least amount of surface area. Yeah,
and he got this idea through looking at nature. Uh.
He very famously looked at things like crystals and seed
(10:31):
pods and things like that and thought, like, you know nature,
And a lot of people do this in design. They
look to nature because nature has sort of proven to
get it right usually over the years. Yeah. Like if
you look at an eggshell, you're like, this thing shouldn't
withstand anything, and yet it does. And it's a very
curious thing. But it sure looks like it could slip
out of a chicken's butt with ease, which is kind
(10:53):
of what it does. Like, what if it was square,
it slips out of the cloaca. That's true. So um,
Bucky Fuller, as he's known, he apparently I don't know
if he wasn't aware of Bowersfeld's design or something. Did
you get that impression? I don't. I couldn't tell if
this was nefarious. He seemed like a good guy, so
I don't think he like stole this idea, but he
(11:14):
was able to secure a patent. He did. And there's
a really great Time article if you can find it's
called di Maxian. American maxim was a word that was
associated with him. Um, he he just made up words
a lot, but he it tells it. It's from N. Four.
It says that he was trying to figure out a
geometry of energy, and he was using spheres as a
(11:35):
model of energy. No idea, but he was putting spheres together.
And his his idea was that when you put spheres together,
they would just make a larger and larger sphere. But
that's not what happened. If he took a central sphere
and put other spheres around it and pushed it together,
and what he found was that it started to make
squares and triangles rather than a larger sphere. And he
(11:59):
figured out that what he had just come up with
was actually a very smart structure. That you could take
those squares and divide those into triangles, and you could
take the triangles and divide the triangles into even smaller triangles,
and if you kind of curve the edges of the
triangles inward towards some imaginary center inside the sphere and
actually create a sphere. And technically it's a polyhedron, and
(12:21):
most geodesic domes are a cosahedrons, which, if you play
dungeons and Dragons, is just a twenty sided die. But
the more you cut the sides into smaller and smaller triangles,
the more the closer to an actual perfect sphere you
you get. And that's a geodesic sphere. And if you
cut it in half, or cut a portion of it
(12:44):
and just use one half of it, that's a geodesic dome. Yeah,
which is what you see like, Uh, it's not fully
round because it has to be flat and sit on
something right. Well, actually, um, the Spaceship Earth geodesic dome
is a full sphere. But that is pretty rare. Uh.
And I thought it was interesting too, um that they
(13:04):
said that if you were just designing something on paper,
you could just design bigger and bigger and it would
just get stronger and stronger. But in reality, um, that's
really not the case. Like when when rubber meets the road,
they're really there's really only so big you can kind
of get. Yeah, because I had no idea about this,
you know, it's roughly familiar with geodesic domes. I didn't
(13:25):
know any details. But one thing that I was surprised
to find is that the triangles are not all the
same size. They have to be adjusted to make this
shape to make this circle or the sphere. So, um,
if you're putting together one of these things, as we'll see,
you have to be like, oh, this struck goes here,
not here, and I actually put it here up on
(13:47):
the top, and now I have to go take the
whole thing apart again. And yeah, the less complex, the
better impracticality. But yeah, you can really mess with it
to make it virtually a perfect sphere out of triangles. Uh. Yeah,
you mentioned a minute ago that and I think people
that pay attention, we're probably like, oh, Josh is so
funny or what did he just say? Did Buck Minister Fuller? Uh?
(14:10):
Makeup words? He did, because he made up another word
when it comes to these domes, Uh, tin segrity, which
is not a good word, it's not He mixed two
words together at tensional and integrity. Uh. And so that's
the relationship between the tension and compression, and that really
(14:31):
kind of describes how these things fit together and why
they end up being super strong, even though when you
look at it, you're like, man, I could blow that
thing over, right. So let's let's say your break and
then we'll get into like the actual dynamics going on. Okay,
and geometry. Yes, yes, alright, Chuck, I promised it's time
(15:18):
to talk to geometry. How did you do in geometry?
I failed the first time aced to the second time.
I'm actually really glad that I failed it because when
I was forced to take it again by the man.
And this is high school, right, yeah, um, I it clicked.
And I've never understood any field of math like I
understood geometry. I don't quite remember it now, but like
(15:40):
I understood geometry like I was. Pythagoras is like brother,
I kind of I wasn't quite at that level. But
I feel like because I'm I have long sort of
poo poo the maths. Yeah, but you've that right, well yeah,
but I mean just for my my pea brain like
understanding it. I understood geometry more than all the other maths.
(16:00):
And uh I did okay in it for a for
an English nerd. Yeah, you know, good enough, because it's
completely different than anything else. I feel like in the
geometry does seem like its own thing for very much, like, yeah,
there's numbers and sigma makes an appearance and stuff like that,
but it definitely seems to be It's different than algebra.
I'll tell you that buddy shout out to Miss carn
(16:21):
Read In high school. Oh, I wish I could remember
my geometry teacher that when it clicked with she was great.
She was one of those teachers that's like I was
seventy years old. From the time that she was twenty
eight till the time she was seventy, she was great,
and then she turned back into twenty eight. Yeah. She
remember she had this polka dot It's funny the things
that you remember. She had this polka dot shirt where
(16:42):
all the polka dots were collected at the bottom, and
she said that it used to be all over, but
she hung it up to dry. That was her big joke.
She's like, welcome in my class. It's the only joke
of the year. Let's get busy. Yeah, I bet you
there's one person out there who had Miss carn and
knows that shirt. Yeah. I hope it's a great joke,
Miss carn Um. Okay, so we're talking geometry, right, Yeah.
(17:05):
Do you remember our bridges episode. Remember we talked about
bridge trusses, the bridges that are made up of triangular shapes,
and we said, like those things are extraordinarily strong because
their triangles. Same thing here can't beat them. A geodesic
dome or sphere is a sphere made up of triangles,
and if you actually take the triangular shape and build
(17:29):
one in reality, it is one of the strongest shapes
you can um create because wherever you press on it,
it transfers that pressure that forced to the rest of
the shape. So it distributes that kind of weight or
pressure force or whatever you want to lay on on it.
It distributes it evenly. And if you put another triangle
(17:51):
together with one triangle, it sends it to the other
triangle too, And so the more triangles you add, the
more a force is distributed throughout. And that's basically it.
That's why it's so strong. Like what you were saying,
like you look at it and you're like, I could
blow that over. You might be able to push it
over and make it roll away if it's a sphere,
but you you probably could not break it. Yeah, And
(18:15):
when you look at like if you're inside one of these,
it's usually covered with like wood or drywall or something,
so it's not as evident, but on the outside you
generally can still see this frame of triangles all fitting
together beautifully to make something super super strong. Yes, and
apparently the strongest version of a geodesic dome or sphere
(18:39):
um is one that's actually made not just out of triangles,
but out of pyramids. If you look at if you
look at the Epcot Spaceship Earth Geodesic sphere, it's actually pyramids.
All the triangles are actually Yeah, that is that's it.
That's the money geodesic dome. Yeah, and that one, since
(19:00):
we're on that is interesting and that uh one of
the downfalls and we'll go over more later, but one
of the downfalls of geodesic domes is sometimes rain doesn't
treat them well. But the one at Epcot was just like,
we're not even gonna pretend that we want to repel
the rain. They have little grooves that actually collect the
rain and that send it to one of those uh
(19:22):
little corny lagoons. I love those, I know, I love
everything about Epcot. I haven't been since I was in
seventh grade. I mean, did they update it or is
it still very much like the World of Tomorrow today?
You know they've updated it. I mean the whole thing
is still like that. Yeah, but there's like newer stuff,
Like there's a really cool um ride an immersive ride
(19:46):
called Soaring, where like you get lifted up and you're
in front of this huge, giant curved movie screen and
you're like, so soaring through this like the world, like
a world tour. It's really neat, And did they move
your little thing around so you feel like you're you
definitely feel like you're soaring through there. Yeah, that's like
the when they debuted that Back to the Future ride
(20:07):
years ago. Was it like that. Yeah, you sit in
the DeLorean and it's on hydraulics and it's like moving
all around, but it's a movie screen in front of Yeah,
and you're and you're going through. But it's it's amazing
how like accurate they can sync that up to where
you really feel like, like I remember that was at
one point where the car was on the edge of
a cliff and it was sort of teetering and it
got really quiet, and then it teetered over and then
(20:29):
it the car just stopped moving and he felt like
you were falling just because it stopped moving. And if
you like turned around and look backwards, you're like everyone's
freaking out and you're just sitting in a car doing nothing,
but everybody's going it was so great. I loved it.
So we were saying, like this this thing pops up
all over nature. Yeah, the geodesic dome did. This Time
(20:51):
magazine put article put it really beautifully that, Um, it
was like Buckminster Fuller had discovered a signature of God,
who has made scared quotes because God ended the whole thing.
Since it is such like a an efficient structure that
can support a lot of weight, you do see it
in things like eggs Cornia testicle, which I'm like, sure, really,
(21:17):
I guess so I couldn't find that anywhere else, and
I definitely typed testical geodesic dome into Google and it
didn't really come back with anything. But this nineteen four
Time article says it. So it's so well, the dome
period is a pretty strong structure. Um. The Romans were
building really big, strong domes a long long time ago,
(21:40):
but they don't stay strong for long. That's sort of
one of the problems with the dome just a regular dome,
is that you need a lot of super heavy supporting
materials and walls to keep it up, and over time
they wear out. But uh, what Fuller did was took
that sort of same principle and applied this geometry to
it and triangles that the Romans you know, didn't think of,
(22:03):
and the rest is history, I guess. Yeah. What what
he found was that when you put these fears together,
you you created what he called the vector equilibrium, the
outward force of the thing that's trying to collapse it.
You know, like if you if you could press down
on the roof of the house, it would collapse outward
to the sides. The same thing wants to happen to
(22:25):
geodesic dome. But in a geodesic dome, that pressure outward
from the force of gravity is actually equal to the
force that's being distributed around it, the circumferential force, And
since they're equal and equal measures, they cancel each other out.
(22:47):
So it's just like the thing is gravity free. Yeah,
I mean you see, you definitely see why he was
like this is the house of the future. Because they
were cheap, they were strong, they were a lightweight, and
you know they distribute, uh, like heat just blows around
them because around they're really efficient to heat and cool.
(23:08):
There are a lot of really great advantages to them. Yeah,
and so when he I can't remember when he made
his first one, I think it was at a World's fair.
Was that the Montreal was at the first one. No,
Montreal was sixty seven. This one would have been in Moscow. Um,
well that's when he got his patent. Yeah, I guess
(23:28):
this would have been before the right around the same time.
But in Yeah, I guess the first one must have
been Ford, the Ford plant. Yeah, the Ford Motor Company
wanted covering um and he said, well, I think this
is the trick and he and he built it. He
was like, I can, and this is what Ford wants
(23:49):
to hear or any company. He was like, it'll be
better and cheaper, and I'll get it done faster than
any of these other schmucks. And so bear in mind
that when when Ford called him from Dearborn, Michigan, that
they no one had ever come up with this before.
They thought since they wanted to enclose their courtyard, the
central courtyard and rotunda that they'd built, um, that it
(24:12):
was gonna have to be a traditional dome with buttresses
and supports and like heavy walls and all. That The
problem was because the court was so far across. I
think it was more than thirty meters ninety ft across. Um.
Anything that they built would probably collapse the walls of
this very sturdy rotunda building. So they had a problem.
(24:33):
And when they called buck Mr Fuller, I don't know
how who got in touch with who. Um, it was
pretty brazen for him to say, what what you said?
He said that he can get this done below cost,
in time, it's gonna be super light. And he proved
the world wrong, his doubters wrong, at least when he
built the first geodesic dome over and it was pretty awesome. Also,
(24:57):
we didn't mention he was a freshman, a freshman college dropout. Um,
so he's self taught and he just came along and
showed the world of engineering basically a brand new type
of structure and incredibly elegantly efficient type of structure. He
just showed the world it could be done. Yeah, some
people are just born with like a certain kind of brain.
(25:19):
That's why he deserves his own episode for sure. So
the forward, uh dumb was was great for a while
until nine two when it was leaking and they said, hey,
this thing is leaking, we need to do some repair work.
So they were doing that and they were waterproofing and
weatherproofing the panels and they were using a waterproof see
(25:39):
through transparent waterproof sealer. But to make it easier to spray,
they heated it up, which makes sense, but unfortunately those
vapors ignited from a propane heater. This thing caught on fire,
and I get the idea that it was like the
whole thing was done in like an hour. Yeah, because
(25:59):
they sealed a lot of it with the waterproofing, the
highly flammable waterproofing stuff. So when a little bit called
it was vapors caught, the whole dome caught fire. And
it was made of like aluminum in plastic, so it
just went up like a match. And they were decorating
for the Christmas fantasy exhibit below in the courtyard. All
that stuff caught on fire. It burned, the whole roof
(26:21):
tunded down. Imagine there's nothing more flammable than Christmas decorations
in the early night a chance. Yeah, it was really sad.
Everyone got out of there, which is good, but by
the time the fire department got there, it was too late.
It was toast fifty ft flames like I can't imagine
what that scene looked like, and it burned the whole
building down. Like this was actually a tourist attraction. And
(26:45):
do you imagine going to Dearborn, Michigan to see the Yes,
that's what people did. I think it's seen like eighteen
million visitors in like it's twenty or thirty years of operation.
And this this waterproofing fixed burned the whole thing down
at Christmas time. So this I love how this article
kind of brushes over it says no matter buck Mr
(27:06):
Fuller's geodesic dome had shown that it could be done. Yeah,
it bears a little more digging in that for sure,
but it is true like he had shown the world
there's this thing, and we should start making them because
they are efficient, cheap, affordable and highly transportable. And apparently
next the next people to call was the military because
(27:28):
they wanted to start using them as like antarctic basis
or to cover radar dishes, that kind of thing. Yeah,
he very famously too in nineteen sixty seven, at now
was this the World's Fair? There's this a different thing.
They just didn't call it World's fair, right. The Universal
Exposition in Montreal UH in sixty seven very famously had
a two ft tall dome uh and he was he
(27:52):
was really trying to push the limits of what you
could do. Like he he dreamed of enclosing part of
Manhattan and a dome and ing, we could give you
clean air and climate control and it'll pay for itself
over time because you won't have to use snowplows and
all these other like things that cost money. It seems ghastly,
almost like a burnse In type of of idea. Well
(28:14):
it would, I mean there would definitely be a certain
class of people that lived in that thing. Yeah, but
it's done. If he'd be like, we'll do it overall
of you know queens, right, Well, yeah, it was lower.
It was twenty second to sixty two I think from
river to river in Manhattan. Wow, it was. It was
gonna be huge. And he did say it could pay
for itself just from snow removal, not having to snow removal,
(28:35):
but imagine not having precipitation ever. It's just it's it's wrong,
there's something wrong with that. But it really captures the
can do engineering spirit of of mid century America for sure. Yeah.
I mean, you can do a cool experiment with like
a biosphere type of thing, but you don't want Manhattan
covered by a dome, you know, all the all the smells,
(28:57):
maybe t Peeka or something like that. And that's one
of the problems, is all the smells apparently, like did
they just fill up that dome? There's nothing to stop it, right, Yeah,
the sewer gas accumulating at the top and eventually exploding. Yeah,
no good the ghostbusters running around shooting off pro tom
packs inside that thing. No good man, it's been a
while since a g B ref. Should we take a break,
(29:20):
all right, we'll be right back, chuck. Alright, So the
(29:51):
sixties and seventies come along. He's been doing a sing
in the fifties, and this is when the uh, the
counterculture and the anti mainstream sort of vibe was hitting,
and so it was sort of prime sort of primed
for these things to come into fashion. And they did,
just for regular old houses. Yeah, they didn't sweep the nation, no,
(30:11):
but you know, there were enough people looking for ways
to very blatantly thumb their nose that they established look
at my round house basically, yeah, and and and again,
like it really does. It does provide a lot of
um benefits that other ones don't. Right, So, like because
it's a it's a sphere, and it's basically one big room. Well, yes,
(30:34):
but you can build rooms inside of you can't UM.
But the heat in the um, the air distribution is
really efficient, so it's very cheap to heat and cool.
I think that the average number that people are reported
was about a thirty savings in um energy cost. That
sounds totally made up, it does, but I saw as
(30:57):
high as fifty, and it seems like the world said, no,
we'll go a third UM. And so you've got heating
and cooling efficiencies, like you were saying, because it's a round,
it's not trying to stop wind like cool wind, hot
wind when it runs into your house. If it's a
rectangular house craftsman, mid century modern, who cares it runs
(31:20):
into it and it's going to transfer heat or cold
into your house? Yeah, in my case right through my windows,
and okay, yeah, it's a great, great example. The thing
is is you don't want that heat or that cool
in there usually, so you're gonna have to spend a
lot of money to artificially pump it out right through
a c um with with a geodesic dome. The the
(31:42):
wind kind of just moves around it. It's super aerodynamic,
so it's not just running into this flat surface and
trying to go through. It's just like, yeah, excuse me,
I'll just go around. Yeah, and that's why they're great
in Antarctica. Um, they can withstand whatever kind of weather
they throw they Antarctica A and I have seen some
of these at the beach. Um. Again, they're not like
(32:06):
the coolest looking beach house, but you see him, you know,
you'll see like quaint old beach house, cape cod geodesic
dome and then like mcmanchin and I imagine they do
very well at the beach. Yeah, because after a hurricane,
if a hurricane is bad enough, you see empty lot,
empty lot, dome, empty lot, and apparently that's that's it's anecdotal,
(32:29):
but that's the been reported that geodesec domes can make
it through substantial hurricanes when the rest of the houses
around it did not. Yeah, it makes sense. Um. Some
of the disadvantages is like we're joking about the smell,
but it's really true smell and sound. If you've just
got a big globe that you're inside, are really going
to move around. Uh, there's not a ton of privacy,
(32:52):
even though you can build out sort of like living
in aloft, you know, you can build out rooms, but
if your rooms don't have a ceiling, although I guess
you could do that too, you could, but then you're like, well,
you know, like why I'm I even in a exactly
uh light as well. Um, that's a big one. Yeah,
you know, like the little light on your router that's
like really bright at night. Imagine that just being distributed
(33:16):
throughout your entire house. Yeah. No, good, No, that's not
a good one. Plus, I mean, if you look at
any piece of furniture that's ever been created in the
history of humanity, it's all meant for rectangular structures. Yeah,
unless it's some sort of custom piece for a geodesic tone,
which is very expensive. Yeah, you have to get all
this stuff made yourself. And the same goes true for uh,
(33:37):
Like the construction world is set up for square uh,
so fixtures and and plumbing and pipes and all that
stuff has to be sort of uh and contractors get
scared away from these sayings, Oh yeah, they won't come
near it. Yeah unless you're just a specialist. Sure, and
you're probably like the highest paid contractor in the world
who works like once a year. Yes, um, but those
(34:01):
same disadvantages are also advantages, right, Like you have a
lot more floor space. Yeah, but sometimes it's wasted. It
can be like if you've got a a big long couch,
you've got a bunch of space behind it that's just
sitting there a little, a little semi circle behind you.
That's why a lot of and I think this is
the reason why I'm not super hip on geodesic Jones
(34:22):
is um. A lot of the stuff is just kind
of out in the center of the room right right,
and it looks adrift or un anchored. That's a good
thing about a wall or a corner or something like that.
It provides a visual anchor to your stuff. No one
can sneak up on you. No, that's maybe that's why
I don't like it. I'm like, what's what's behind me?
Do you like your back against the wall in a restaurant? No?
(34:45):
I don't care about that, man, do you? Yeah? Really,
you're afraid you're gonna get what? Are you a gangster
or something? Now? I don't think I'm gonna get whacked.
It's just I just feel exposed. And Emily is very sweet.
She's usually like, go ahead and take the seat, but
lately she's been like no, that's mine. Oh yeah, nothing, man,
it's just the time we're living in. She's doing it.
(35:08):
So do you sit there and like turn around every
time somebody comes in the waiter comes in and a
punch of my chain around and punch of don't touch
my stuff. Uh. Rain, We talked about rain. Um, it
can be problematic. H And it says in here that
flat roofs are the best. What they mean are flat
roofs at an angle because the truly flat roof it's
(35:29):
not good. Frank Lloyd Wright did a bunch of those,
and they were his. His houses were could be very problematic.
He had the very famous exchange. I can't remember the
the person, but it was some very very wealthy, sort
of noteworthy person. Frank Lloyd Wright built in a house
and he called and complained and said, the waters is
now dripping onto my desk, and supposedly Frankloyd Wright said,
(35:53):
moved the desk. And that sounds like frankly right, Yeah
for sure. I don't know if that's a true story,
but true. Um, so with with the with a shingle roof,
even with the flat roof, like a flat roof is
not moving water, but it's probably not coming down. There's
not as many places for it to come down with
a geodesic dome. Every place where your struts, the sides
(36:18):
of the triangle come together at an angle at the nodes,
there is a point where water can get in and
actually can get in along where one triangle goes into another.
There's a lot of places for water to penetrate the
geodesic dome. It's a water nightmare from what I can tell. Well,
let's put together from a lot of little panels. Yeah,
(36:40):
so let's let's just really briefly say that. So one
of the things, one of the reasons why people were
crazy for geodesic domes is you could put them together,
like we said in a day. Yeah, you can get
a color coded kit. You still can, and there are
companies out there that will send them to you, and
you can get your friends, get some good sixties speed
in the case of beer or two, and build your
(37:02):
house in a couple of days and not sleep the
entire time. Um. So, when you when you put these
things together, you're you're building the structure and then you're
coding the structure. It can be one kid I saw
as a greenhouse, it's a really great greenhouse. If you've
ever been on a jungle gym that was built after
the sixties, those dome ones geodesic don't um. But what
(37:26):
the structure can be made from, like a hollow tubing,
ply or um, two by fours, whatever, it can be, wood,
it can be whatever. And then usually the outside the
triangles that fill in over the structure concrete or plastic
or plywood or something like that. Then you want to
coat it. But all those different seals or those different seams,
(37:48):
they're all just water heaven um, which is again a
big problem. We probably problem number one practically speaking. Yeah,
it's interesting now that I think about it. It's sort
of how tent design has gone over the years. Tints
used to be just like camping tents, just like triangles,
like a pup tent, and then the big dome tents
(38:11):
came into fashion, and then I think the secret was
to try and make dome tents with his few seems
as possible because that's where your water gets in, and
a few poles too, Yeah, just a couple of and
then maybe and then you got you got your tent.
You could be a tent designer. I did I want
(38:33):
to go ahead and trademark what I just said. Okay,
should we talk about some famous domes. I think we
should because that's always the best part. There's the Expo
six s one that, by the way, burned as well.
Now the structure stayed. They turned it into a biosphere
in the nineties. I believe so Brendan Fraser lists in
there and Stephen Baldwin sure man alive that's where he's been. Uh.
(39:00):
There is the in these to me, like if you
look up the how do you pronounce the one in Japan,
the Fukuoka Yahoo Oko Dome was at the full name
Yahoo Oku with an exclamation point because Yahoo is the
sponsor rights. Yeah, so that is a baseball stadium. But
(39:20):
when you look at these like I don't like, to me,
I think of Epcot. When you look at this baseball stadium,
it doesn't feel I mean, it is a geodesic dome,
but it just doesn't feel like that kind of futuristic
like highly paneled triangular thing. Well, what's cool about it
is the dome part actually retracts in like twenty minutes.
(39:42):
And the reason to retracts so quickly is because it's
so lightweight comparatively speaking, yeah, so it's pretty sweet. There's
Thema Dome, yeah, which is a wood dome that just
does not sound sturdy to me. Yeah, what was it? Oh?
Our Skyscrapers episode? Was that that new Wood skyscraper somewhere? Uh?
(40:03):
Why do I want to say, like Nebraska? I thought
that was Japan too? Oh was it? I think? So
it's one of the two. Right, it's easy to get
him confused. Osaka Nebraska. They sound alike. Uh. The Tacoma
Dome is where the Sonics used to play. They're like
Kevin Durant gonna love this. Oh man, so sad. Uh.
(40:26):
I wonder when a team leaves. I've always wondered if
they just because I know, like when the Browns left
and became the Ravens. You know, my stepfather was like
they were just dead to me. Wait what Yeah, that's
where the Ravens came from. They were the Cleveland Browns
where the Browns. The Browns aren't playing still, no, no, no,
they they the Browns had no There were no Browns
(40:47):
for years, and then they came back and said, we'll
give you a team again, Cleveland, and you can be
the Browns again. But he art model literally famously packed
up in the middle of the night, like their footage
of eighteen wheeler trucks at like two a um like
hauling stuff. You don't want to leave Cleveland, esk Lebron.
But they were dead to him after that, And I
always wonder, like, if the Falcons left Atlanta and went
(41:08):
to Birmingham, they'd still be the same guys. I would
I wouldn't be like, no, screw that team. No, That's
definitely how I went with. Yeah, they were Sattle was
not very happy about that. They were not. Supposedly they're
going to get another team. One of the Microsoft founders,
I guess was in the act is talking about bringing them.
(41:30):
Somebody from Microsoft is going to bring a team. They're saying,
what was it, Paul Allen? I don't think so. He
just passed away though, right, Maybe it was Paul Allen.
I mean he owned the Sonics, I think, but he
was from Microsoft. I'm just getting all confused now. No,
I think Paul Allen was Bill Gates partner. He died. Yeah,
(41:50):
I think he died kind of in the last like
six months. Well, maybe Seattle is not getting a basketball team,
I'm not sure. Okay, where did they go oh Oklahoma City? Right? Yeah, Oh,
it's so confusing everyone for two half sports guys like us,
you don't even make a full sports guy. Who's your
team this season? Well? I always read for the Hawks,
but it's just there a waste land. It's pretty bag.
(42:13):
So I don't even care. Who do Shrewder play for? Now?
Does he? Oh? I thought it was a different Western team,
you like Lebron in l A. Sure we should have
a sports show called the Worst Sports Show on the
Web kind of. This is a trailer for it. Uh
what about the Eden project? That? That one's pretty cool?
(42:34):
And aren't there two of these? And there one in
China as well? I think they're going to open one
in China. I think there's a third one they're opening,
but the one that the original ones in corn Cornwall,
I'm sorry, canal cornhole in in the u K. God
knows how you pronounce that. I guarantee it's not Cornwall's
probably Cornwall maybe. Um, this one's really cool though. This
(42:57):
is one where you look it up and you're like,
this is what you should be doing. And within geodesic dome,
like uh experimentation, they build a diome or biome That's
one of the points of a geodesic dome is you
can create a different climate inside a larger climate. It's
a bubble. You're creating a climate bubble. That's what the
Eden Project did at least, and they have two of them.
(43:19):
They've got a tropical biome and then a smaller Mediterranean
biomes and they're just beautiful, lots of amazing plants and
waterfalls and just great stuff. Apparently it's a wonderful tourist attraction.
I would go. I think there's also a witchcraft museum
in Cornwall that I want to go to. Let's do it, man,
all right, we're going road trip. We gotta do a
(43:40):
UK tour again. Yeah, that was awesome, and then we'll
detour off to Cornwall. Maybe do a show there. How
many people are there Cornwall? Let us know if we
should do a show there. Let's do a live show
inside the tropical biome. That'd be cool. I wonder if
we could set that up. We could also do in
a upcut too well, do well do a geodesic dome tour?
Can we do one inside of the castle and the
(44:01):
magic can ask? You have connections there? Right? Yeah? Friend
Brandon that's right. Who built my site, the Josh clarkway
dot com. I know I'm gonna have to get in
touch with him as my kid gets older. I have
to finally drag Emily down there. He will happily help
you out. Here's a great guy. He help brother. Oh
and by the way, I'm glad you brought that up.
Congratulations to Brandon and Katie on the birth of their
(44:24):
first ever child. Wo Yes, Cooper born into Disney Royalty. Yeah,
pretty much, it's pretty great. Congrats dudes. I wonder if
Cooper is going to go up and just be like,
yeah and take care to leave it. I go like
twice a week. Right, this is euro Disney. I wish
it Disney. Uh. Well, that is Spaceship Earth, of course,
is the one we're talking about there that we mentioned.
(44:44):
A hundred and eighty feet tall silver geosphere very much
the central sort of shining star of Epcot. That's why
everybody thinks of with Epcot on every shirt, well not
every shirt. But did you know that God as an acronym? Chuck?
I did, but I remembered that from when I was
(45:05):
a kid, but I can't remember now. What is it?
Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow and the name of the
geodesic dome is actually called Spaceship Earth and it was
directly influenced by Bucky Fuller. Um. Walt Disney was a
big futurist. That's why there's like tomorrow Land and all
that stuff, and why there's upcotton in general. Um. But
(45:26):
not only did he inspire Spaceship Earth. The name Spaceship
Earth comes from a Bucky Fuller essay kind of a
novella called an Operating Manual for a Spaceship Earth. You
can find the PDF for free on the web and
get a pretty good idea of Bucky Fuller's whole jam.
(45:46):
You know what I heard. I heard that that very
famous Walt Disney signature is not his signature and believe
that a cartoonist designer came up with that. It's too perfect.
I could totally see that. I'm not I'm not affected
by that. I'm okay with it. Oh really, he's not
just a big fraud now in your mind. Basically I
(46:08):
let him off the hook. Uh. If you want to
know more about g desic domes, go make friends with
a hippie. And since I said that, it's time for
listener mail. I'm gonna call one of our new young fans.
Got a very sweet email from Veronica. Hey, guys, I'm Veronica,
fifteen years old and I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana. I just
(46:28):
heard about Sarah, the thirteen year old super fan. Who's yeah,
Sarah's she's Miss carn Um, and I too, am a
super fan. I started listening when I was nine or
ten with my mom every once in a while. Then
I got an iPod and started listening to you regularly
when I was eleven. I love listening to the show
when I'm getting ready in the morning and I'm going
to school. We're going to sleep before bed. Every time
(46:51):
you guys do a tour announcement, I always hope you're
gonna say somewhere close, like within two hours of Indianapolis.
But I don't think that has ever happened. Dude, Cleveland
is not that far from Indianapolis. I took a break
from podcast for about two months, but I missed listening
to them, so I came back and now and back
regularly again. I just want to stop in and say hi.
If I'm lucky, I'll make it to the podcast, but
(47:12):
I don't expect it. Just keep being you, guys, because
I love to learn about the four different types of
cat hair, the fact that cinnamon is a type of
tree bark, perfume is made from whale vomit, and eurosol
is what makes poison ivy so itchy. Wow, my mom
really likes your beard, Chuck, and she hopes that someone
gives you some beard lights for Christmas. Oh. I saw those.
(47:32):
If you don't know what they are, they're just little
ornaments that you hang in your beard. Have you seen them?
And they light up super festive? Do you want some? Okay,
I cut most of my beard off. I just noticed
that it looks very trim. This is sort of like
the old days. Looks nice. Uh. And that is she
put a sign to Veronica, which is adorable. Thank Veronica,
so Veronica. I think we should. We were trying to
(47:53):
hit the major cities we've never been to. Eventually, I
think we might want to put Indianapolis on the list
for nine oh boy and uh and give Indiana some love.
This year, we were like, I don't know, Salt Lake City, Phoenix,
and they were great. It's true. Well, to be honest,
Salt Lake City came out for us. They email us
(48:15):
there like, yes, please come. We got such an overwhelming
response that we're like, how could we say no? So
we should go to Indianapolis. I told her, if we do,
then we'll put her in mom on the guest lists.
Very nice, dumb, they're settled. We could We could go
to a show there where the cults play. Is it
the Colts? What do they play? Soccer? Yeah, but they
came from Baltimore. It then became the Ravens. It's just
(48:36):
so weird. Everyone's moving all over the place. Who's the
great leader of um the Pacers? Now Victor Um the
great leader? Yeah, great leader? Kim John Victor another coach? No, no,
he's like the captain. But yeah, he's a player. I
don't know, Ron artest fixer. Now Victor Borgia, Yes, Victor
(48:59):
Borgia is now anyway, we're going to list him to
once I remember his last name, because he's a Victoria player.
If you want to know, well, I already said that
if you want to get in touch with us, you
can go to stuff you Should Know dot com and
you will find all of our social links there. I
don't know if I said it or not already, but
I got a website too, it's called the Josh Clark
Way dot com, and you can always send us an
(49:21):
email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
it how stuff works dot com.
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