[Edu-sig] Rapunsel, Rapunsel

[kirby urner]

> Klein considered the tetrahedron the most topologically primitive volume -
> as I think I demonstrated to you by direct quote. Its like literally Page 1
> of the book of his I reference on my site. He quickly also makes the
> connection to interesting analytics and abstraction from this ground.
>

OK that's all to the better.  Some people say "spheres" are the most
primitive shape with an inside and outside, i.e. the simplest "cave"
(convex and concave aspects), so don't like the "tetrahedron" answer. 
Or maybe they prefer "Mobius strip" or some such.

> Unless we have a semantic disconnect.
>

No, we don't.  And mainstream geometers are quite familiar with the
term "simplex" which is the same as tetrahedron in three dimensions
(extended Euclideanism talk).

> Or unless you haven't conducted the study to truly understand some of the
> historical development of the ideas floating about here.
>

I'm not coming at this as an issue of determining priority, in the
sense of who discovered what first.  Fuller was a Robinson Crusoe
type, in his relationship to academia.  He did a lot of input/output
between the ears, but he wasn't a library kind of guy.  More into the
glam life of jet setting, rubbing shoulders with invisible captains of
industry and such, a big J.P. Morgan fan.

Applewhite was more the bookish filer type, avidly seeking to win
priority battles, worrying over mundane issues of "collateral
advantage" and such.  He was good at his job, as the back cover of
Synergetics 2 attempts to make clear.

> "New" is a suspicious word, not a sacred word, in my lexicon - in any case.
>
> Art

You're welcome to be suspicious.  If Fuller was as original as I claim
he is, we're in for some reshaping of intellectual history.  I'm one
of the principle reshapers, I like to think, but I'm not operating
from within the maths department.  I'm a philo guy.

Kirby