conditioned reflexes were not keeping pace with its engineering potential, emphasizing the "touch and go" nature of our current predicament. Fuller hoped the streamlining effects of a more 60-degree-based approach within natural philosophy would help bridge the gap between C.P. Snow's "two cultures" and result in a greater level of scientific literacy in the general population. (935.24) Academic acceptance Fuller hoped to gain traction for his nomenclature in part by dedicating Synergetics to H.S.M. Coxeter (with permission) and by citing page 71 of the latter's Regular Polytopes in order to suggest where his A & B modules (depicted above), and by extension, many of his other concepts, might enter the mathematical literature (see Fig. 950.12). Dr. Arthur Loeb provided a prologue and an appendix to Synergetics discussing its overlap with crystallography, chemistry and virology. Fuller originally achieved more acceptance in the humanities as a poet-philosopher and architect. For example, he features in The Pound Era by Hugh Kenner published in 1971, prior to the publication of Synergetics. The journal Nature circled Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth as one of the five most formative books on sustainability. Errata A major error, caught by Fuller himself, involved a misapplication of his Synergetics Constant in Synergetics 1, which led to the mistaken belief he had discovered a radius 1 sphere of 5 tetravolumes. He provided a correction in Synergetics 2 in the form of his T&E module thread. (986.206 - 986.212) About synergy Synergetics refers to synergy: either the concept of whole system behaviors not predicted by the behaviors of its parts, or as another term for negative entropy — negentropy. See also Cloud Nine Dymaxion House Geodesic dome Quadray coordinates Octet Truss Tensegrity Tetrahedron Trilinear coordinates Notes References R. Buckminster Fuller (in collaboration with E.J. Applewhite, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking , online edition hosted by R. W. Gray with permission , originally published by Macmillan , Vol. 1 in 1975 (with a preface and contribution by Arthur L. Loeb; ), and Vol. 2 in 1979 (), as two hard-bound volumes, re-editions in paperback. Amy Edmondson, A Fuller Explanation, EmergentWorld LLC, 2007. External links Complete On-Line Edition of Fuller's Synergetics Synergetics on the Web by K. Urner Synergetics at the Buckminster Fuller Institute Holism Cybernetics Buckminster Fuller