Undated portrait of architect, writer, and inventor Buckminster Fuller. Richard Buckminster Fuller (July 12, 1895 - July 1, 1983) was an American systems theorist, architect, engineer, author, designer, inventor, and futurist. He began studying at Harvard University, but was expelled twice: first for spending all his money partying with a vaudeville troupe, and then for his irresponsibility and lack of interest. By his own appraisal, he was a non-conforming misfit in the fraternity environment. He served in the US Navy in World War I, as a shipboard radio operator, and crash rescue boat commander. For the next half century, he developed many ideas, designs and inventions, particularly regarding practical, inexpensive shelter and transportation. He published more than 30 books, inventing and popularizing terms such as Spaceship Earth, ephemeralization, and synergetic. He is best known for his design of the geodesic dome. Carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their resemblance to geodesic spheres. In 1983 he suffered a heart attack while visiting his wife in a Los Angeles hospital, who was dying of cancer. He died an hour later, at the of age 87 and his wife of 66 years died 36 hours later.