Joseph Clinton

American structural designer and geodesic mathematician with a long professional association with Buckminster Fuller, best known for NASA-published research on the mathematics of geodesic domes.

In 1970 Clinton worked in the School of Technology at Southern Illinois University, where Fuller taught, and produced papers on the geometry of geodesic subdivision — the methods for dividing a sphere into buildable triangular networks — which NASA contracted and published in 1971. He later founded Clinton International Design Consultants, a firm grounded in what he called "the structural design of the universe."

Role in Fuller's orbit

Clinton is a direct collaborator in the technical core of Fuller's work: the geodesic mathematics that turn Fuller's spherical geometry into constructible structures. His NASA papers formalized the chord-factor and subdivision methods that the wider dome literature depends on.

See Also

• Geodesic Math and How to Use It (Geodesic Math and How to Use It) — the geodesic subdivision mathematics Clinton advanced
• Dome Cookbook of Geodesic Geometry (Dome Cookbook of Geodesic Geometry) — builder's-level treatment of the same chord-factor math
• David Kruschke (David Kruschke) — Dome Cookbook author whose figures agree with his
• Hugh Kenner (Hugh Kenner) — author of Geodesic Math and How to Use It

Sources

• Joseph Clinton (source reference) — Zotero People collection (Wikipedia entry)