Buckminster fuller often used the example of the behavior of chrome steel to demonstrate that complex systems are far more than the mere sum of their parts. Its constituents are chrome, nickel, and steel. No one of these metals is very strong and if one was to make half-inch rods of each and bundle them together, the three rods combined would have only a fraction of the strength that would result from melting them together and making a single half-inch rod from the resulting material, chrome steel.
