¶ Pneumatic Structures (1)
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Index Entry
Pneumatic Structures:
“I have considered a great deal about footballs and balls and pneumatics from being a little kid. And I saw that as I pumped up my basketball or football, it went from supine . . . flat, into this beautiful firm condition. But this is because the molecules of gas were trying to get out of the system. And they got hot because they were in such action. The kinetics of gas are something easy for the brain to understand and feel… . the action of those individual molecules of gas. I saw all the molecules of gas were trying to get out of the system-- that gives it the high pressure-- and they were stretching it outwardly and so, therefore, the skin is designed to go the other way, holding it inwardly so that the skin is finite and comes back upon itself. And it represents a tensional force with the arrows bound inwardly, balancing all the molecules, bouncing, hitting it, caroming around every action having its reaction. So I began to see that it would be possible that geodesics could be similar to what could be called discontinuous compression/continuous tension, where every molecule has to have one it pushes from, like two swimmers in the middle of a tank.”
¶ Citations
- RBF Interview by Hans Meyer, Dome Book II. p. 90. Dec’70
