Errata for Fuller's Synergetics
The following is a list of errors, misprints and, I hope,
corrections to Fuller's Synergetics books. Most of these entries
were identified by Chris Fearnley and myself back in (about) 1991.
But I have added some things since then. If you have other corrections
to the Synergetics books please send me an e-mail note and I will
add your items to this list.
Ed Applewhite has recently reviewed some notes made by R. Buckminster Fuller
w.r.t. corrections to the Synergetics books. Here are these corrections.
From Ed's Files
This errata is for the 3rd printing of Synergetics. The 1st printing
contains additional errors corrected in later printings.
Because of the limited mathematical symbol ability of current WWW viewers
I have used what I hope are obvious abbreviations when necessary. I use
both "**" and "^" symbols for "to the power of".
Corrections to Synergetics:
- page 28, 206.00, "...(See illustration 966.05.)" should be
"...(See figure 966.05.)"
- page 34, Fig. 222.01, "Zero-Frequency" should be labeled "One-Frequency"
as it says in the caption below the figure or the caption should be changed
to "Zero-Frequency".
- page 37, 222.43, "...my formula by virture of which..." "virture"
should be "virtue".
- page 99, Fig. 400.30 Should be labeled 400.23.
- page 118, Fig. 413.01, The "D" label is missing from the
Vector Equilibrium in the figure.
- page 121, "octahedron cumulative 84" should be "85".
- page 122, 415.12, "(See Sec. 985)" should be (See Sec. 995)".
- page 329, 615.05, "in the same way, a structural cube has 12 triangular
vertexes, 8 faces, and 18 linear struts." should be "12 triangular faces
and 8 vertexes".
- page 329, 615.07, "Color Section" Where is it in Volume 1?
- page 445, 813.04, last line says "10 million square miles" should be
"100 million square miles".
- page 469, Fig. 841.15B, Should the "R" and "S" be exchanged?
- page , 905.17, When the icosahedron is "dimpled", the dimpled
vertex goes past the icosahedron's center of volume. Fuller
incorrected states that it stops before passing through the center
of volume. (From Denis F. Blue)
- page 494, 905.45, "See Illus. 950.30" should be "See Fig. 950.31"?
- page 106 and page 789, Fig. 401.05 and Illus. 401.00 are wrong. One
of the compressional members in the upper righthand corner has 5 tension
members attached to it. It should only have 4 tension members.
- page 495, 905.46, "Sec. 905.62" might "Sec. 905.60" be better?
- page 499, Table 905.65, The "Differential" column is not correct.
The entry (26' 18.5") should be (1 26' 18.5") and the entry (1 06' 38.53")
should be (2 06' 38.53").
- page 533, 950.12, (6) and (7) cited illustration may not match.
- page 539, last line, "DEE" should be "DBB".
- page 540, "Illus. 953.10" is hard to find. It is found on page 806
and called "Fig. 953.10...".
- page 547, 954.54, "36 diff AAB" should be "16 diff AAB"?
- page 548, 2nd line, "Six-with-twelve" should it read "each-with-twelve"?
- page 596, 982.71, "Color Section..." There is no color section.
- page 599, 983.03, "formula". What is the formula?
- page 599, 985.02, "since the circle of a sphere..." should be "since
the area of a sphere..."
- page 771, 1223.15, "See Illus. 1012.13A and B" should be "See Fig.
1012.14A and B" which is located in the drawing section.
- page 808, col. 8, "1330" should be "1331" = (11)**3 (3rd power of 11).
- page 848, "1/6 x 1/4 of that of the octahedron." should be "1/6 x 1/4 of
that of the tetrahedron."
- page 850, "Q*R*S" should be "Q*R*S*".
- page 852, "see page 813" should be "see page 845"
- page 778, 1236.01 1*2^3*5^5*7^4*11^3*13^3*17^2*19*23*29*31 is
130,752,285,931,869,333,957,225,000.
- page 779, 1237.01 2^10*3^8*5^8*7^4*11^3*13^3*17^2*19*23*29*31 is
2,092,036,574,909,909,343,315,600,000,000.
Corrections to Appendix of Tables
Icosa Table 987.132G
- entry 6.8: 0.103 181 533 1 should be 0.082 711 823 2
- 2.4.1 is miss-labeled. It should be labeled 1.4.2
- entry 6.14.8: 80.811 911 17 should be 80.811 991 168 2
- entry 28.42.31: 26.511 944 87 should be 26.511 994 871 0
VE Table 987.137D
- entry A.8: 0.042 418 25 should be 0.115 470 053 8
- entry F.41: 0.020 823 77 should be 0.035 136 418 4
- entry F.48: 0.032 723 06 should be 0.045 175 395 1
- entry 37.44: 4.551 702 04 should be 3.059 676 477 0
- entry 48.53: 1.419 452 42 should be 4.229 381 436 8
- entry 60.62.66: 51.130 102 35 should be 53.130 102 354 1
Combo Table 1132.01D
The paragraph preceeding the table is wrong. "The plane projection
of this spherical triangle accords with that shown at Fig. 987.412."
There is no plane projection of this spherical triangle in the
Synergetics books.
- entry F.25: 0.019 274 87 should be 0.026 155 775 1
- entry F.31: 3.686 633 84 should be 0.052 311 550 2
- entry H.43 is missing. The two numbers are 20.905 157 447 8
and 0.270 090 756 7
- entry 1.6 is missing. The two numbers are 6.050 821 841 2
and 0.089 358 795 7
- entry 21.25: 0.021 012 88 should be 0.038 693 493 5
- entry 25.27: 0.037 753 61 should be 0.030 872 704 6
- entry 25.28: 0.025 520 44 should be 0.020 869 129 2
- entry 27.28: 0.027 821 62 should be 0.022 750 897 4
- entry 27.30: 0.045 829 94 should be 0.037 477 057 6
- entry 28.30: 0.036 418 97 should be 0.029 781 311 4
- entry 28.31: 3.534 561 67 should be 3.828 255 534 4
- entry 28.31: 0.049 565 37 should be 0.054 636 089 7
- entry 31.34: 7.277 755 30 should be 6.984 061 429 0
- entry 31.35: 3.893 075 01 should be 4.186 768 877 9
Synergetics 2
- page xx, 000.116, "50.000 p.s.i." should be "50,000 p.s.i."
- page 15, 100.321, "... always 1, 2 1/2, 2 1/2, 3, 4 5, 6 ..."
should be "... always 2 1/2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ..."
- page 207, 936.14, should refer to Fig. 936.19
- page 226, 986.062, "For every edge eliminated by trunctation we gain two
new edges...". Should be four (4) new edges?
- page 244, 986.210, The square root symbol should be changed to a
"cube" root symbol. (Or should I say "tetrahedral" root symbol :)
- page 251, 986.312, last sentence should read "Their three surface
corners are 90 degrees at C, 58.2825256 degrees at B, and 31.71747441
degrees at A."
- page 257, 986.411, the words "three right angles ACB, BCO, and ACO"
are correct and the second line from the bottom should read "to the
rhombi-hedra system and form two of the three."
- page 280, Fig. 986.508C, the C and C' should be reversed in order to
agree with the text at sec. 986.512.
- page 282, 986.515, the first word in the second sentence should be C".
- page 292, 968.580, should be labeled 986.580.
- page 292, 986.581, it should read "edge length 0.9995V" and "surface
of T module = 0.9989669V^2." (the ^2 means to the second power.)
- page 390, "1033,192 Table:..." should be "1033.192 Table:..."
- page 585, Index entry "Twelve-degrees of freedom" refers to sec. 505.25
which does not exist.
Other Errors:
- Typo in related table 986.440 of Synergetics 2: says
Coupler has 18 B-mods. Should read 8 B-mods. (Kirby Urner)
Additional Commentary:
- page 540 of Synergetics, "Illus. 953.10" is hard to find. It is
found on page 806 and called "Fig. 953.10...".
- page 557 of Synergetics, 961.11, y=sqrt() x=sqrt() are for the regular
tetrahedron.
- Often Fuller implies that dividing the sum of the surface angles
of a polyhedron by 720 degrees (one tetrahedron) gives an integer
result (is evenly divisible by 720 degrees.) This is not correct. For
example, take 2 regular tetraheda and face bond them together. Now
we have a polyhedra with sum of surface angles = 2x3x60+3x4x60=1080,
1080 / 720 = 1.5 which is not an integer (but is a rational number.)
So the sum of the surface angles of convex polyhedra need not be
evenly divisible by 720 degrees.
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