Biological organisms exhibit scaling laws that relate their size, lifespan, and heart rate, suggesting a relationship beyond mere biology.
Optimization of energy usage in biological systems allows for allocation of more resources to reproduction and raising offspring.
Scaling laws apply to urban systems, such as cities, which require fewer resources per capita as they grow in size.
Deep dives
Scaling laws of biological organisms
Biological organisms, including humans, exhibit scaling laws that relate their size, lifespan, and heart rate. The average number of heartbeats for mammals remains relatively consistent, regardless of size or lifespan. This observation suggests a relationship between an organism's size, heart rate, and lifespan that goes beyond mere biology.
Optimization of energy usage in biological systems
Natural selection has led to the optimization of energy usage in biological systems. By minimizing the amount of energy needed for functions such as pumping blood, organisms can allocate more energy resources to reproduction and raising offspring. This optimization principle explains the scaling laws observed in biological organisms.
Applying scaling laws to cities and social organizations
Scaling laws have been found to apply to urban systems, such as cities. Just as in biology, there are economies of scale in cities, as larger cities require fewer resources per capita compared to smaller cities. This understanding of scaling laws can help analyze and model various aspects of urban systems, including energy usage, transportation networks, and social interactions.
Regular behavior of physiological characteristics across different organisms
Physiological characteristics, such as metabolic rate, lifespan, and heart rate, exhibit a consistent and regular behavior across different organisms, regardless of their size or evolutionary history. This regularity was unexpected and goes against the naive notion of natural selection. Additionally, this regular behavior is also observed in various other characteristics, indicating a systematic pattern across different quantities. The existence of these scaling laws highlights the universality and fundamental nature of these physiological relationships.
Organisms and cities as network systems
Organisms and cities can be understood as complex network systems. In the case of organisms, the circulatory system and other biological networks are necessary for sustaining and servicing cells in an efficient manner. Similarly, cities function as networks that enhance social interactions and optimize the flow of resources and information. Both organisms and cities exhibit scaling laws, which reflect their network structure and characteristics. However, unlike biology, cities follow a different scaling exponent and exhibit positive feedback loops in socio-economic quantities. Understanding the principles governing network systems can inform better urban planning and policy decisions.
If you scale up an animal to twice its height, keeping everything else proportionate, its volume and weight become eight times as much. Such a scaling relation was used by J.B.S. Haldane in his famous essay, "On Being the Right Size," to help explain certain features of living organisms. But scaling relations go much deeper than that, and they are often much more subtle than the volume going as the cube of the length. Geoffrey West is a particle physicist turned complexity theorist, who studies how features from metabolism to lifespan change as we adjust the size of an organism -- or of other complex systems, from cities to computer networks. His insights have important implications for innovation, sustainability, and the best ways to organize life here on Earth. [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/seancarroll/geoffrey-west.mp3" social_gplus="false" social_linkedin="true" social_email="true" hashtag="mindscapepodcast" ] Geoffrey West received his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. He is currently a Distinguished Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, where he served as President from 2005 to 2009. He has been listed as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. He is the author of Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies. Home page Wikipedia page Amazon page TED talk on "The Surprising Math of Cities and Corporations" Google Scholar publications Download Episode
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