Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was a true polymath, dipping into fields as diverse as poetry and architecture. It is for the latter that he is best known and, in particular, for the geodesic dome. Many geodesic domes have been built around the world, including the Epcot Center in Disneyworld, Florida, and the Eden Project in Cornwall, England.
Geodesic domes come in many shapes and sizes, but they're basically a sphere made from self-reinforcing triangular sections. The dome has a number of advantages: It maximizes volume to surface ratio, it is very strong for its weight, it is quick to assemble, and it is aerodynamic, allowing it to stand up to strong winds. Although Fuller received the U.S. patent on the concept, he was actually building on earlier work by the German Walther Bauersfeld, who constructed a planetarium along these principles in 1922.
Fuller's dome had a remarkable renaissance in 1985, when Harold Kroto and his coworkers discovered a third stable form of carbon (after diamond and graphite) comprising sixty atoms of carbon. Kroto, pondering the possible structure of such a compound, recalled a geodesic dome he had seen in Montreal, and subsequent analysis suggested that carbon cages of sixty atoms are arranged just as in one of Fuller's geodesic domes. The structures were named fullerenes in his honor. Buckyballs, -as they are also known, have been touted as delivery devices for medicines, and structural components in nanotechnology applications. Even though large- scale production remains a challenge, this unusual structure looks to have a promising future.
