Synergetics Dictionary — Card Query Recipes

Runnable recipes for querying E. J. Applewhite's Synergetics Dictionary cards where they live (the repo root), per the dataset manifest. Use the text-only variant synergetics_dictionary/ for search (the image variant is ~2.9 GB). All recipes below were executed against the data on 2026-06-28; sample counts are real.

Data shape (recap)

23 single-letter files A.md … Z.md, each holding many ## Card C##### entries (term + optional RBF DEFINITIONS quote + See … cross-references), plus front/back matter files.
Measured totals: 20,524 card headings across the letter files; 8,767 cards carry Fuller's own words (RBF DEFINITIONS).
Card image path pattern: synergetics_dictionary/images/cards/<letter>/C#####.jpg.

Recipe 1 — Look up a term

# Term's first letter → that letter file. Case-insensitive, with context.
grep -n -A6 -i "tensegrity" synergetics_dictionary/T.md

Validated: returns the Tensegrity: cards in T.md, including Fuller's quote "Engineers agree that tensegrity is operative but they are only permitted by their art to calculate the compression components…"

Recipe 2 — Find a card by its ID

grep -rln "Card C01053" synergetics_dictionary/[A-Z].md

Returns the letter file containing card C01053. Drop the -l to see the card body.

Recipe 3 — Count cards (per letter / total)

grep -c '^## Card C' synergetics_dictionary/S.md            # one letter (S → 2293)
grep -rh '^## Card C' synergetics_dictionary/[A-Z].md | wc -l   # total → 20524

Validated counts: A 882 · B 639 · S 2293 · T 1638 · V 529 · total 20,524.

Recipe 4 — Filter to Fuller's own definitions

# Cards that quote Fuller directly are marked "RBF DEFINITIONS".
grep -rh 'RBF DEFINITIONS' synergetics_dictionary/[A-Z].md | wc -l   # → 8767
grep -n -B2 -A10 'RBF DEFINITIONS' synergetics_dictionary/S.md       # read them in one letter

Recipe 5 — Follow cross-references

# Applewhite's "See …" pointers chain related terms.
grep -n '^    See ' synergetics_dictionary/V.md

Validated: yields entries like See Invisible Quantum as Tetrahelix Gap Closer,, See Ruddering Sequence, (5), See Vacuum, 19 Feb 72.

Recipe 6 — Pull a card's scanned image

For card C01053 under letter b:

synergetics_dictionary/images/cards/b/C01053.jpg

Use the image variant only when the original scan is needed; otherwise the text-only variant suffices.

Notes

These recipes read the dataset in place — nothing is copied into the wiki, consistent with the dataset manifest.
For a single well-known term, prefer Recipe 1; for exhaustive study of a concept, combine Recipe 1 (definition) + Recipe 5 (cross-references) to walk the concept graph.