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"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 businesse...
Geoffrey West's research centres on a quest to find unifying principles and patterns connecting everything, from cells and ecosystems to cities, social networks and businesses. Why do organisms and ecosystems scale with size in a remarkably universal and systematic fashion? Is there a maximum size of cities? Of animals and plants? What about companies? Can scale show us how to create a more sustainable future? By applying the rigour of physics to questions of biology, visionary physicist Geoffrey West found that despite the riotous diversity in the sizes of mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. This speaks to everything from how long we can expect to live to how many hours of sleep we need. He then made the even bolder move of exploring his work's applicability to cities and to the business world. These investigations have led to powerful insights about the elemental natural laws that bind us together in profound ways, and how all complex systems are dancing to the same simple tune, however diverse and unrelated they may seem.
This book explains the emergence of a profoundly new understanding of the fundamental forces of Nature.
Collected Papers of the International interdisciplinary conference ‘‘Real Life and the Real Economics’’ There are many insoluble paradoxes in the advanced and technologically driven 21st century. One of these cornerstone mysteries is the factual history of business, economics, and even day-to-day technologies. If it is considered that ''money rules the world,'' then why, is it the case, there is no single reasonable idea, how and where money came from? What was the progression of metamorphosis and transformations that allowed impersonal pieces of paper and electronic signals to become today the central exchange equivalent? There is no history of business, history of economy or histor...
Scaling relationships have been a persistent theme in biology at least since the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo. While there have been many excellent empirical and theoretical investigations, there has been little attempt to synthesize this diverse but interrelated area of biology. In an effort to fill this void, Scaling in Biology, the first general treatment of scaling in biology in over 15 years, covers a broad spectrum of the most relevant topics in a series of chapters written by experts in the field. Some of those topics discussed include allometry and fractal structure, branching of vascular systems of mammals and plants, biomechanical and life history of plants, invertebrates and vertebrates, and species-area patterns of biological diversity.
It was an agreable, though strenuous task to edit a book with so many distin guished contributors, on a subject to which I have given half of my life. In 1959, when Prof. O. EICHLER invited me to edit a book on "Histamine and Anti histaminics", as a supplement to HEFFTER'S Handbuch, I thought the task could be done in three years. Now, five years are gone and only half is fulfilled. Though, so far as the "Histamine" part of the book is concerned, the initial plan has been followed very closely, we had to leave the Anti-histaminics for another volume of unpredictable dimensions. In 1924, eight pages inserted in a Chapter on M utterkorn, by ARTHUR R. CUSHING were considered enough, in vol. II,...
Geoffrey West's research centres on a quest to find unifying principles and patterns connecting everything from cells and ecosystems to cities, social networks and businesses. SCALE addresses big, urgent questions about global sustainability, population explosion, urbanization, ageing, cancer, human lifespans and the increasing pace of life, but also encourages us to question the world around us. Why can we live for 120 years but not for a thousand? Why does the pace of life continually increase? Why do mice live for just two or three years and elephants for up to 75? Why do companies behave like mice, and are they all destined to die? Do cities, companies and human beings have natural, pre-determined lifespans? Why, in fact, do we die? Are we just a fascinating experiment in natural selection that is ultimately doomed to fail? And what is the origin of the magic number 4 that seems to determine much of physiology and life-history from birth to death? SCALE is a seminal book of breathtaking originality and scope.
Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences brings together for the first time major researchers in the field to present overviews of current thinking about the form and determinants of macroecological patterns. Each section presents different viewpoints on the answer to a key question in macroecology, such as why are most species rare, why are most species small-bodied, and why are most species restricted in their distribution?
What can a fingernail tell us about the mysteries of creation? In one sense, a nail is merely a hunk of mute matter, yet in another, it's an information superhighway quite literally at our fingertips. Every moment, streams of molecular signals direct our cells to move, flatten, swell, shrink, divide, or die. Andreas Wagner's ambitious new book explores this hidden web of unimaginably complex interactions in every living being. In the process, he unveils a host of paradoxes underpinning our understanding of modern biology, contradictions he considers gatekeepers at the frontiers of knowledge. Though we tend to think of concepts in such mutually exclusive pairs as mind-matter, self-other, and nature-nurture, Wagner argues that these opposing ideas are not actually separate. Indeed, they are as inextricably connected as the two sides of a coin. Through a tour of modern biological marvels, Wagner illustrates how this paradoxical tension has a profound effect on the way we define the world around us. Paradoxical Life is thus not only a unique account of modern biology. It ultimately serves a radical--and optimistic--outlook for humans and the world we help create.