Everything I know

[rwillmsen]

Comments

[csn]

There's a compound named after him too! It's 60 Carbons attached to eachother in a big old geodesic dome.

BF was an interesting guy. What an ambitious and crazy project. 42 hours. Maybe he was senile by then.

[rwillmsen]

Having now listened to a fair bit of the recording, I think he may well have been losing it a bit. His voice goes well wobbly at times.

[temujin9]

There's a compound named after him too!

Not just a compound: a full family of compounds, called fullerines. What you're referring to is a buckyball, although it's not a dome but a sphere. There are also buckytubes, aka carbon nanotubes, which have all sorts of crazy next-gen technology applications as soon as mass manufacturing them can be sussed out.

What an ambitious and crazy project. [...] Maybe he was senile by then.

Ambitious and crazy projects were his thing; the other object in that picture is his three-wheeled car, which despite having advantages over four wheel models was never adopted.

So there's no way to tell if he was senile just because of this project. My guess is that he wasn't; senile people aren't up for public speaking, in my experience.

[csn]

Right.

Although, as far as the 3-wheeled car goes--it HAS been adopted--in China. I see them every day. Can't say they look very durable, though.

[rwillmsen]

I certainly remember seeing lots of them when I was a kid. Something I'm really looking forward to in Brasil is that the cars mostly run on palm oil. Or something.

Just out of interest, have any of you listened to much of the lecture? I reckon I've 'done' about 4 hours and it is fascinating, although he is a bit of a droner and his voice does grate after a while.

[temujin9]

I haven't; it's in my reading queue, though. I'm not much of a auditory learner, so listening to even a brilliant man drone on wouldn't help me much . . .