Scale
The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
by Geoffrey West · first published 2015
79% recommend21% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Approachable popular-science tour of scaling laws across organisms, cities, and companies, covering metabolism, lifespan, and why infrastructure and social output grow at different rates; for curious general readers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"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. The former head of the Sante Fe Institute, 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 b
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…capabilities to analyze and understand these ever evolving systems. I for one, have began to fight my ignorance by studying more books on complex systems. Here's a good one I've discovered recently: "Scale" by Geoffrey West. Also, a useful collection of resources, courtesy of Santa Fe Institute: https://www.complexityexplorer.org/ (HINT: Go to explore -> browse section) ... and bonus, one of the most…
on “The next capitalist revolution” ↗Scale: The Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies by Geoffrey West [1] [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scale-Universal-Organisms-Cities-Co...
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗…consider this to be evolutionary advantageous to us or the virus/bacteria...similar example from toxoplasmosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis Geoffrey West touches upon some of this stuff in scale - its worth a read https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainabi... Oversimplification is that some of the viruses / genetic defects that kill us later let us live long enough to reproduce…
on “Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection” ↗Life span has nothing to do with that. Life span is all about economies of scale of the organism. The larger the organism the more efficient it is. The heart rate is slower etc. There are exceptions in animal kingdom, of course. For detailed scientific overview on this specific topic,…
on “In the Mind of a Whale: Can we make sense of the biggest brains on the planet?” ↗Scale https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainabi...
on “Ask HN: Books on specific topics that have applied to many areas of your life?” ↗Geoffrey West's book Scale gets into this -- good read. https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainabi...
on “Why Elephants Don’t Explode: How Nature Solves Bigness” ↗You may appreciate the book Scale[1], by Geoffrey West. I don't know if I completely buy all aspects of the book, but he looks at organisms, cities, and companies and suggests that there are certain fundamental scaling properties of these…
on “Why Do the Biggest Companies Keep Getting Bigger? It’s How They Spend on Tech” ↗I thought this had been explained by how this setup maximizes the efficiency of the respiratory system. This was discussed in a great book I read called Scale: https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Growth-Organisms-Comp... the human vascular system follows the same rule iirc.
on “Leonardo da Vinci's tree rule may be explained by wind” ↗I was going to write a post on this, and then saw someone else had already done it better than I could manage! It was inspired by this book, which was really eye-opening: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scale-Universal-Organisms-Cities-Co...
on “Software estimates and fractality” ↗…later when I have time to do it justice. On the off chance I don’t, the book “Debt: The First 5000 Years” is pretty close to my view of it. Also, if you want a less “economics” view of it, I’d recommend “Scale” by Geoffrey West
on “Amazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs” ↗Some of the specific examples in the article seemed off to me too. However, I did love the book Scale by Geoffrey West who is one of the authors of the paper discussed in the article. At the very least, the book is a great introduction to the many different aspects that scale up with city size.
on “Simple mathematical law predicts movement in cities around the world” ↗This kind of scaling applies well beyond brain. I recommend checking out the book Scale by Geoffrey West[1] for more examples. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31670196-scale
on “Were small-brained early humans intelligent? Row erupts over scientists’ claim” ↗I can only recommend "Scale" by Geoffrey West who covers this and equally interesting scaling laws in nature to great detail: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/31670196
on “On Being the Right Size (1926) [pdf]” ↗the predominant theory is that the length of an organism's lifespan is inverse to the rate of it's metabolism. Look into Kleiber's law. Also worth reading the book Scale by Geoffrey West.
on “Fossil hints that Jurassic mammals lived slow and died old” ↗There is an interesting book called Scale by Geoffrey West, which speculates about how the scale of things like organisms and cities is bound by spatial networks. Worth a read
on “What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?” ↗