Geodesic dome Zeiss plant in Jena, Germany. A larger dome, called "The Wonder of Jena", opened to the public in July 1926. Some 20 years later, R. Buckminster Fuller named the dome "geodesic" from field experiments with artist Kenneth Snelson at Black Mountain College in 1948 and 1949. Although Fuller was not the original inventor, he is credited with the U.S. popularization of the idea for which he received U.S. patent 2,682,235 29 June 1954. The geodesic dome appealed to Fuller because it was extremely strong for its weight, its "omnitriangulated" surface provided an inherently stable structure, and because a sphere encloses
Solving the geodesic equations Solving the geodesic equations Solving the geodesic equations is a procedure used in mathematics, particularly Riemannian geometry, and in physics, particularly in general relativity, that results in obtaining geodesics. Physically, these represent the paths of (usually ideal) particles with no proper acceleration, their motion satisfying the geodesic equations. Because the particles are subject to no proper acceleration, the geodesics generally represent the straightest path between two points in a curved spacetime. On an "n"-dimensional Riemannian manifold formula_1, the geodesic equation written in a coordinate chart with coordinates formula_2 is: where the coordinates "x"("s") are regarded as the coordinates of a