Tensegrity - my new favourite word.
Used by Buckminster Fuller it means, "a portmanteau of tensional integrity. It refers to the integrity of structures as being based in a synergy between balanced tension and compression components."
Further more, "Tensegrity is the exhibited strength that results "when push and pull have a win-win relationship with each other". Tension is continuous and compression discontinuous, such that continuous pull is balanced by equivalently discontinuous pushing forces.
Buckminster Fuller explained that these fundamental phenomena were not opposites, but complements that could always be found together. Tensegrity is the name for a synergy between co-existing pairs of fundamental Physical law; of push and pull, and compression and tension, or repulsion and attraction."
How fucking cool is that?
Qu'est-ce que c'est que cette histoire de porte-manteau?
Posted by: Loïc Boyer | May 18, 2008 at 22:25
Eh?
Posted by: Ben | May 18, 2008 at 22:39
I was wondering about the presence of a coat rack (porte-manteau) in B.F.'s theory.
Posted by: Loïc Boyer | May 19, 2008 at 10:09
cool, indeed
I will try to use the word at our next meeting... maybe!
Posted by: Bernd | May 20, 2008 at 12:05