英语听力文摘 English Digest 349、球型屋顶的奥妙（在线收听）

Buckminster Fuller and His Geodesic Dome
巴克敏斯特·福乐和他的球型屋顶

Ever heard of a man named Buckminster Fuller, or Bucky, as his friends called him? R. Buckminster Fuller was a twentieth century scientist, philosopher, inventor, and was also named a great architect.

Part of what made Bucky so special was his concern for the planet and humanity. When you have a shortage of resources, he said, you get war. Thus, he developed an idea called Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science. It’s a mouthful, but what it entails is his belief that to solve humanity’s major problems, we have to look forward to the future; we have to anticipate what will become problems as resources diminish, etc.

His goal? Quote: “More and more life support for everybody, with less and less resources.” He was especially interested in developing more efficient housing; that is, a new way of constructing buildings so that they provide more housing space with the use of fewer resources. One solution he came up with in the late 1940′s is the geodesic dome, the invention he is most famous for.

The geodesic dome is a structure shaped like a piece of a sphere. It’s made up of a complex network of triangles, and the more complex this network the closer the comes to the shape of a true sphere. What’s so great about the dome is that it does exactly what Bucky wanted; that is, it has the highest ratio of enclosed area to external surface. In other words, it uses fewer materials to create more housing space.

听说过一个叫巴克敏斯特·福乐的人吗？朋友们常叫他巴基。巴克敏斯特·福乐是二十世纪的科学家，哲学家，发明家，同时他也是一名伟大的建筑师。

他如此特别的部分原因是他很关心地球和人类。他说当缺乏资源时，就会发生战争。所以，他开创了一种观念，叫作“全面预期设计科学”。这个名字有点拗口，但它需要巴基的信念来解决人类主要问题。我们必须展望未来；我们必须预期会出现的问题，比如资源减少等等。

他是目标？引用一句话：用最少的资源维持更多人的生活。他对开发更高效的住房特别有兴趣；那是一种建造房屋的新的方式，用更少的资源提供更多的住房空间。上世纪40年代末，巴基提出了一个解决方法，即球型屋顶，这也是他最著名的发明。

球型屋顶是一个形状像球体的结构。它由一个复杂的网状三角形构成。网状结构越复杂，建筑物的形状就越接近于真实的球体。圆屋顶额伟大之处在于它封闭区到外部表面的比例最高，那正是巴基想要的效果。换句话说，就是用更少的材料建造更多住房空间。