¶ Trees (3)
Index Entry
Trees:
"So nature, in arranging for one tree to build another tree, makes up a folded, tight blueprint in a tension network grid and folds it into a tight package: a seed. When the seed comes to rest, nature then provides the means for expanding the tree pattern by means of locally available compression components developed from the local water and air. Water is highly noncompressible-- our powerful hydraulic pumps exploit this-- so when nature builds a tree, she takes the blueprint of the seed and begins to pump it up, full of locally available water. She then develops regenerative patterns, using the inhibition of more and more local waters. More water is needed because so much keeps leaking out, through the process known as osmosis.
"It is the noncompressibility of the water which makes for that great sturdy stiffness of a tree also permitting a tree trunk to hold out a branch weighing from ten to 25 tons to be waved flexibly in the wind. How can it wave in the wind? Because in between the molecules of non-compressible water, nature pushes in little packages of air, little spheroids. Air is highly compressible (as in
¶ Citations
- KEPES, pp.85-86, 1965
