What Happened to Ecology? John McHale and the Bucky Fuller Revival

Since the early 20th century, the environmental impulse in architecture has waxed and waned. Anthony Vidler considers this cyclical phenomenon, particularly in relation to the Independent Group in Britain during the 1950s, which culminated in John McHale's discovery of Richard Buckminster Fuller in 1955 and the full-blown Bucky Fuller revival of the 1960s. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A recursive solution for Turing’s H-M factor

Turing devised an electromechanical device, called a Bombe, to decipher German Enigma messages. His original design was considerably improved by the addition of Welchman’s diagonal board, allowing the use of much weaker menus and even menus without closures. Turing then made some extensive calculations to predict the performance of the improved Bombe. He provided a table, called the H-M factor, which allowed the expected number of stops to be predicted for menus containing a given number of letters and closures, but he gave no indication of how he constructed the table. This article is of technical interest and sheds some light on the H-M factor, including its variability with the tree-arrangement of the menu. It derives the H-M factor using a recursive technique for both the standard Bombe and the Jumbo Bombe, a later version incorporating the machine gun mechanism. These results may be of interest to those that code or run Bombe emulators.     

MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC: BOOK REVIEWS

Abstract

This article describes the importance of the Knox contribution to the breaking of the plugboard German Enigma through his early work on the commercial machine; as well as his invention of “rodding” and exploitation of the Saga method of “boxing.” It also covers the multi-turnover Abwehr machine through observation of the phenomenon of ‘crabs and lobsters’ in message indicators.     

Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions: Irving I. Gottesman.

Irving I. Gottesman received the 2001 Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions. He was given this award for elucidating the genetic and environmental causes of schizophrenia and criminality by combining the perspectives of human genetics, epidemiology, and clinical psychology. He has translated genetic concepts, such as polygenic/threshold model of complex disorders, for broader use in psychology and psychiatry and has created links among scientists in North America, Europe, and Asia. A pioneering researcher, a mentor, a spokesman for science, and an effective advocate for the mentally ill, he has influenced the field. As a consistently balanced and informed voice in the nature-nurture debate, he has fostered a more productive public dialogue about the origins of human behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

In the Mi(d)st Of

It's in the air. The first thing that the term atmosphere evokes is in the air, the intangibility of air. A gaseous layer enveloping the planet, a zone where clouds move about, atmosphere is the invisible shroud around each object emanating (such is the meaning that the word has taken on over time) a sort of fragrance or warmth. Atmosphere is created by the particular subject matter or place – it is given off from it – and corresponds to it like a sort of spirit that floats around, revealing, betraying a certain essence of the place or subject matter, but remaining ever visible. Michel Orsoni, ‘Point of view: A question of atmosphere’, 1998¹. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards self-organisational and multiple-performance capacity in architecture

Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design expands and develops the themes of the previous, highly successful Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies issue of 4 (Vol 74, No 3, 2004), which was also guest-edited by Michael Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael Weinstock of the Emergence and Design Group. While the first volume elucidated the concepts of emergence and self-organisation in relation to the discipline of architecture, this issue augments its theoretical and methodological foundation within a biological paradigm for architectural design, while also discussing promising, related, instrumental techniques for design, manufacturing and construction. Michael Hensel introduces the issue and explains how it addresses a much broader range of scales, from the molecular to that of macro-structure and, beyond, to ecological relations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.