Geoffrey B. West

"Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks... Fascinated by issues of aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science, creating a new understanding of energy use and metabolism: West found that despite the riotous diversity in the sizes of mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other... West's work has been gaming changing for biologists, but then he made the even bolder move of exploring his work's applicability...and applied...[it] to the business and social world."--

The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies

Scale

I love that West introduces the whole field of biology by criticising its disconnect from common — no, universal — concerns. And that maybe all that every biology department and the NIH need, is a little bit of basic math.

Travis Well

Given the poor track record of males in my ancestry, it seemed natural to begin my thinking about biology by learning about aging and mortality. Because these are among the most ubiquitous and fundamental characteristics of life, I naively assumed that almost everything was known about them. But, to my great surprise, I learned that not only was there no accepted general theory of aging and death but the field, such as it was, was relatively small and something of a backwater. […] where does the scale of one hundred years for human life span come from, and what would constitute a quantitative, predictive theory of aging?

Geoffrey West

"Dieses Buch erweitert Ihr Denken von drei auf vier Dimensionen." Nassim Nicolas Taleb, Autor von "Der schwarze Schwan" "Scale" ist ein großes Ideen-Buch, das uns neue Welten erschließt, ein intellektuelles Abenteuer, das bislang unverknüpfte Perspektiven und Wissensgebiete miteinander verbindet. Es zeigt, welche universalen Gesetzmäßigkeiten unserem biologischen und sozialen Leben zugrunde liegen, die uns alle auf so einfache wie tief reichende Weise miteinander verbinden. Wer wissen will, wie die Welt wirklich funktioniert, muss dieses Buch lesen. Am Anfang stand die Faszination von Altern und Sterblichkeit. Mit der Präzision des Physikers hat West die Frage, warum wir so lange leben, wie wir leben, und nicht länger, zu beantworten versucht. Das Ergebnis war erstaunlich: West entdeckte, dass trotz bestehender Unterschiede alle Säugetiere skalierte Versionen voneinander sind. Kennt man die Größe eines Säugetiers, so kann man vom täglichen Nahrungsverbrauch über die Dauer des Reifungsprozesses bis hin zur Lebensspanne alles herausbekommen, was man über das betreffende Tier wissen will. Seine für die Biologie bahnbrechende Forschung hat West auf andere Felder angewendet, insbesondere auf Städte und Unternehmen. In "Scale" schlägt er vor, einige der großen Probleme, mit denen wir ringen - von der rasanten Verstädterung, dem Bevölkerungswachstum bis zum Verständnis von Krebs sowie den Ursachen von Altern und Tod -, auf der Basis eines ganzheitlichen Ansatzes anzugehen. Nur so gelangen wir zu Erkenntnissen und Strategien, mit denen wir diese großen globalen Herausforderungen auch bewältigen können.

Die universalen Gesetze des Lebens von Organismen, Städten und Unternehmen

Timeo Williams

The essence of the book- disparate in nature, follow universal scaling laws, though in varying degrees- power laws, linearly, logarithmic-ally, ext. 

One fascinating thing pointed out- heart beats. The total number of beats of each heart for all organisms is pretty much the same, however the speed/frequency is heavily dependent on the size of the organism. Smaller creatures, tend to have much faster heartbeats, compared to larger ones.

Pierre

I wish the author made his point in half the time. Too much inside stories.

Bouke van der Bijl

Some interesting ideas and patterns are being shown in this book that seem to emerge in life, cities and companies arising from the necessities (oxygen, electricity) they each uniquely need. Lots of neat facts about animals too. Not sure what I learned from it though, because I’m not sure how I can apply the knowledge that many things are scaled versions of each other in my daily life. Maybe feeling more empathy for mice?

"This is science writing as wonder and as inspiration." —The Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in. Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term “complexity” can be misleading, however, because what makes West’s discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities and our businesses. Fascinated by aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science: West found that despite the riotous diversity in mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. If you know the size of a mammal, you can use scaling laws to learn everything from how much food it eats per day, what its heart-rate is, how long it will take to mature, its lifespan, and so on. Furthermore, the efficiency of the mammal’s circulatory systems scales up precisely based on weight: if you compare a mouse, a human and an elephant on a logarithmic graph, you find with every doubling of average weight, a species gets 25% more efficient—and lives 25% longer. Fundamentally, he has proven, the issue has to do with the fractal geometry of the networks that supply energy and remove waste from the organism’s body. West’s work has been game-changing for biologists, but then he made the even bolder move of exploring his work’s applicability. Cities, too, are constellations of networks and laws of scalability relate with eerie precision to them. Recently, West has applied his revolutionary work to the business world. This investigation has led to powerful insights into why some companies thrive while others fail. The implications of these discoveries are far-reaching, and are just beginning to be explored. Scale is a thrilling scientific adventure story about the elemental natural laws that bind us together in simple but profound ways. Through the brilliant mind of Geoffrey West, we can envision how cities, companies and biological life alike are dancing to the same simple, powerful tune.

The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies

Keven Wang

Felipe Saldarriaga 

Geoffrey West explaine in a really awesome way how systematicaly is the growth in every form of live and how they tend to a 'order'

Danté

Main takeaways:
- Sublinear scaling of a downside as a system grows = economies of scale. 
- 3/4 power scaling for organisms means that large insects/Godzilla would collapse under own weight.
- Heating/cooling mechanisms in houses must scale with volume not area of walls. Ships increase in volume can carry more cargo and fuel but have less drag as that only scales with area.
- areas considered included businesses and cities. E.g. walking speed in a city is greater compared to 
walking speed of people in a small town.

Dana Kraft

I found this super-interesting as it helped me understand the connections between individual actors within a system and the emergent system behavior along with lots of other interesting things. The author does a good job of keeping things relatively simple. I want and need to read more about this as I feel like I generally understand what he explained but I sure as hell couldn’t explain it very well. 

The things that will stick with me are:
* common factors between plants and animals that make them scale similarly
* “...what is irrelevant at one scale can become dominant at another...”
* Fractal nature of natural systems can make two dimensional things become “space-filling” which means they effectively have an additional dimension.
* Dangers of thinking things scale linearly. Blah blah blah, but how smart do I think I am when I look down my nose at economic comparisons that don’t incorporate per unit or per capita -which of course is linear scale - there is plenty in here that is humbling
* “...continuous adaptation, not equilibrium, is the rule.” This seems like a better, although less simple way to describe economic systems. 
* increasing pace of innovation and life in general means that career disruption is something that everyone should expect more than once in their lifetime because whatever you learn will be obsolete within your lifetime.

Lucas Coelho

Incredibly dense and important read to understand complex systems from biology to culture. 

Every once in a while, you read a book that changes your view of the world. This book was one of them. 

Starting my second read now.

Victor Gomez Estevez

El libro desarrolla un marco conceptual en el que manejar la complejidad biológica, de las ciudades y de las empresas de una forma muy extensa. Aunque es muy interesante, a veces se repite demasiado y se alarga en ejemplos redundantes.

Jeremy Cote

This was a pleasant read, to say the least. I always find it fascinating when trying to use mathematical principles to describe social and environmental phenomena that is usually more quantitative. Of course, as a physicist I'm biased. I also thought that the idea of cities and companies being described as having lifespans and similar scaling laws was quite interesting. I'm always fond of using simple principles to describe a wide range of complex phenomena, so it was a lot of fun to read about. I definitely recommend the book.

Scale The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies

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