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

Geoffrey West’s book Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, And Companies (Penguin Press (New York), 2017, is a wide-ranging survey about the way in which scale and scalability affects every life form and activity, including civilization and its human institutions here on earth. This is a profoundly important book, in that it brings together fundamental knowledge and understandings of the biological sciences, biochemistry, and physiology in ways that show that there appear to be what might be called the ‘Laws of Life’ might be hypothesized and generalized as traits and characteristics that all life forms share in common regarding commonalities and replications of patterns, their respective strengths, stabilities, and lengths of time that they may be expected to remain alive and retain viability. These matters have occupied the thoughts and explorations of philosophers since the days of ancient Greece when schools of philosophical thought first became systematized and written down. In many respects, the Platonic model, consisting of idealized prototypes to which they are real-world exemplars emulated poorly, was a step or two along the right path, but not in the way that anyone would readily recognize, because Platonic thinkers utilize the mathematics of geometry to express their ideas. It would take humankind an additional 2500 years in order to arrive at understandings about the ultimate nature of reality, not in terms of circles, squares, and triangles, as believed by the ancient Greeks; but rather as stochastic processes that are now believed to govern the known universe itself. It is not the Platonic ideals as to form whose characteristics are now being studied; instead, it is the operation of evolution itself, achieved through random processes that apply to all living things, and that the atoms, molecules, and organic tissues themselves that are developed over time within a myriad of species share common characteristics as to their strengths, their replicabilities, and their scalabilities that allow them to remain viable, and to reproduce their respective species. This concept of scalability as a limiting factor West shows as apply across the board, from the simplest unicellular life forms to the largest animals capable of independent locomotion and survival here on earth. Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist who has taught at major universities around the world, among them Oxford University, Imperial College, London, and elsewhere in the world. He is also a Distinguished Professor and former president of the Santa Fe Institute. He has also conducted pioneering research into the nature of complex systems, and what might be expected to occur when those systems reach beyond the cycles of natural growth that they would otherwise have without the intervention of innovative technologies that allow those systems to expand beyond their natural limitations. His treatise is a tour de force about how these earthly life forms develop and expand from there simplest roots to the complexities that we face every day. More importantly, scaling itself allows him to explore the nature of complexity; the concept of emergence, self-organization, biological networks, and resilience. He addresses matters of ecological and environmental sustainability; innovation and what he refers to as ‘Cycles of Singularities’. West talks about the institutions of human life, from the simple to the most complex; how cities and urbanization closely resemble diverse colonies of protozoa; the nature of exponentiality and so-called ‘power laws’, and why that is important, as increasing size is also a hallmark of inherent weakness in individuals, in species, and in human-made societies, economies, and institutions. He speaks about the emerging science of cities and city life, what makes them good, interesting, and viable; but he also speaks to how cities can drown in their own complexities. He also talks about something called fractal geometry, and how the complex patterns on which fractal mathematics is based is widely applicable to a wide range of subject matter, from computer graphic interfaces and motion pictures, to explaining cardiac arrhythmia, to music and artwork, to simulations of weather and earthquakes, and to explain volatility in the stock market. The important thing to remember about scale is that it magnifies both what is known, and what is unknown; and it is in that realm that magnification multiplies disruptive effects. In seismology, we all know about the Richter Scale, in which the effects of earthquakes are magnified exponentially with each incremental increase of force on the scale magnified by a power of 10. The higher the number, the much more powerful they become, causing their disruptive effects to propagate over a much wider area. The Richter scale is illustrative of what is known as a power law, meaning that on a logarithmic scale, the strength of the effect increases according to the size of the exponent that acts as a multiplier of lower numbered effects. At the same time, those exponentially larger effects are less commonly seen, and by virtue of their absence from consciousness, people lose awareness of the potential for incalculable damage once those effects become manifest. Along with heightened impact come interactions with other aspects of the environment that might not be noticeable. For example, the great Alaskan earthquake of 1964 exceeded 9 points on the Richter scale, but it was the tsunami that followed that wiped out coastal towns and villages. So, scale matters, even if one of the more significant dangers is our collective forgetfulness that these events occur; and they do occur more frequently than we would like to imagine. West concludes by considering about an emerging science of commercial entities, i.e., companies: their various complexities and more limited abilities to remain sustainable over time. As an interconnected body of knowledge in which groundwork findings in biology are shown to have relevance to larger matters about the way society operates, West’s book is essentially a work in progress. Social science, including economics, psychology, and politics (including law) are still far behind their physical science brethren in making the proper connections, and in arriving at the appropriate conclusions. Nevertheless, the fundamental understandings are there for study and contemplation. Sometimes, it is more than enough that a pioneering researcher or philosopher simply points the way forward for others to follow. That is perhaps the ultimate value of Geoffrey West’s magnificent book: acute observations provoke serious inquiry lead to further observations and explanatory hypotheses. Science is always a work in progress; and what we claim to know today can become subsumed in a larger body of knowledge that is now accumulating. West acknowledges that there are natural limits to what living metabolism can do to keep an organism alive, even if that organism is the beneficiary of natural selection. He invokes the Second Law of Thermodynamics to suggest that entropy places an upper limit on the amount of energy in living things that can be turned to productive use. When a process reaches equilibrium in a closed system, the process itself may cease to continue; and whether it is described as an accumulation of disorder, or tagged with a pejorative appellation such as ‘useless energy’, the idea encompasses a physiochemical process beyond which its constituent parts cannot process further. The concept of wisdom implicitly acknowledges that lives are finite, that at some point things come to an end, and in the end, the preferred course of action is to make the best use of the time and resources we have available to us. To that end, an ungovernable sense of unrestrained scalability may cause us to throw away whatever potential for good or betterment that we can reasonably expect to have left to us over our remaining lifespans. In this respect, Geoffrey West may be considered something of a stoical philosopher. And that is yet another excellent reason to acquire and read his book. Highly recommended!

This is a great book. Demonstrating the similarities between scaling in organisms and in cities was very interesting. Although I was familiar with scaling in organisms from reading several other books, I did not expect that scaling laws would be so similar between organisms and cities. Contrasting respiratory, circulatory, and gas, water, and electrical lines was also conceptually interesting. One thing the book missed was scaling in technologies (e.g., scaling in chemical plants, LCD panels, engines, oil tankers, airplanes, magnetic storage, and transistors), which I have addressed in my book from Stanford university press. A second missed aspect of scaling is Paul Romer’s increasing returns to scale theory for R&D. But my biggest problem with the book is his criticism of biologists for their lack of mathematics. If 19th century biologists had emphasized mathematics to the likely level he desired, there would have been no Darwin, Wallace or von Humboldt, in other words, no theory of evolution. Mathematics is only useful once we have a good descriptive model, a lesson that social scientists should not overlook. An overemphasis on math and statistics prevents economics from addressing the fundamental problem of our generation, lower productivity growth. But i still highly recommend the book.

In three words, excellent, necessary, and inspiring. Scale is about order where we see just chaos. It should be read together with Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life . You should try this one first. By the way, Geoffrey West has a Ted conference on the topic that I saw, in fact, before reading the book. But, as is customary, the book is superior, even necessary because it expands in every direction the topics he touches at the conference room. I would say that the conference is more focus in the theme of cities as organisms. The book is the path you have to follow before arriving there. And the journey (the book is a fascinating one) is full of little details and several perspectives that are being added one by one up to the final chapter, where you see the whole picture. But before getting there, the book has to answer several questions. The main one is enunciated at the very beginning (page 7): "How do we ensure that our human-engineered systems evolved only over the past ten thousand years, can continue to coexist with the natural biological world, which evolved over billions of years?" And even more important: "Can we maintain a vibrant, innovative society driven by ideas and wealth creation, or are we destined to become a planet of slums, conflict, and devastation?" Full of examples and ideas, the work makes you look for yourself, to review some videos, articles, papers, and, as always, some other books. In fact, inspired by Scale I bought also The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. A classic. This is a Santa Fe Institute hot topic so this is more than mere academia, is surfing on top of wave. The book was published this year and my hunch is that it will continue to be present for several more. The search for "universal laws of growth, innovation, sustainability, and the pace of life in organisms, cities, and companies," is just beginning. The math is the same as usual but today we have computer simulation, and we can do experiments in a scale never imagined before. If you are interested in how the world works in a big scale, this is the book. Every week or so a million people leave the countryside to the city. Yes, every week. Can you imagine? All those huge nodes, connected to each other are configuring a net so vast and thick, that we need something more than just keeping accounts. Here enters scale, showing that size matters, and every single species occupies a unique niche according its scale --including us, of course. So, if the scale, which means the position of an organism or a super-organism (as cities) with respect, for instance, to the consumption of energy, represents an order, well, we are facing the possibility of finding a law or laws that tell us how this works, what we can expect for the future, what we should see when reviewing the past, an so on. The point is "that the dynamics, growth, and organization of animal, plants, human social behavior, cities, and companies are, in fact, subject to similar generic laws." That is why the book is so impressive and that's why you need time to digest all this information page by page. It takes a week to read it, but after that it will always be with you. You won't forget it because it changes the way you see the city, your city. And in so doing is leaving behind all those crazy ideas that try to explain through rhetorical means why the cities are so big and why they fail (like Santiago de Chile, during the last winter when it ran out of electricity). Well, a deserved and permanent five stars book.

Geoffrey West states in the first chapter of this book that his overall goal is, (and I'm paraphrasing because I do not have my copy handy right now) to provide an overall analysis of the amount of energy required to sustain not only biological life but also the "life" of our economies, more specifically the energy usage of cities and civilizations across the globe, mostly modern day. Dr. West provides interesting tidbits of knowledge regarding similar energy consumption among humans and other organisms, as he puts it, from the shrew to the blue whale - all of which have roughly the same amount of heartbeat in their lifetimes (roughly 1.5 billion). (NOTE: given our advances in medicine during the last one hundred and fifty years, ((and other factors)) human beings have extended our average lifespan to roughly 2.5 billion). The point in this analogy, Dr. West points out, is that organisms show a uniform energy consumption across their life spans even though there are considerable differences in the longevity of lives. The book is easy to digest, but not for everyone and not the most casual reading. Dr. West speaks of the growing world population and makes postulations on how we as a species will be able to maintain the same levels of comfort and luxury we now have in our current disposition given the rapid energy consumption currently required to power our cities and their infrastructures, as well as our lives. He is not a nihilist, though he states at the outset he is a pessimist by nature. He argues we will need to have continuous shifts in our socioeconomic zeitgeists at accelerating rates in the future to ensure pushing off the inevitable "singularity" which many believe will be the beginning of the end for our solely biological sentience, e.g. someone like Ray Kurzweil. For instance, he uses the innovations of the past to emphasize his point; it took us (paraphrasing here, again) 1,000 years time between the Stone, Bronze and Iron ages to make "innovations" happen in our societies. Yet, technological advancements keep happening at a much more rapid rate and "push off" (so to speak) the inevitable brick wall of available "energy" we will hit as people, cities, organisms who consume more than is "available" in our market. In other words, the demand will eat up the supply eventually. However, at the end of the book - he leaves room for further innovations yet to be devised. Overall, this was a very enjoyable book and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the growing economies and challenges facing us as we head into the middle of the twenty-first century in the decades to come.

West sets out with dry and nerdy intellectual language, suitable for the mathematical subject matter. He comes by it honestly and soon plunges into amazing examples. Prepare to be regaled with quite interesting comparisons, in an analysis that amends Darwinian theory to show that scaling across all natural, or earth-bound systems obeys certain additional laws of physics - making systems from whales to trees to cities abide by fractal structures. Complete with quotable examples and understandable math for the layperson. West's dry nerdy style is also funny in a tongue in cheek way. His enthusiasm for the subject matter and reverence for certain founding scientific forefathers' scientific work is contagious and he readily gets under way with engaging analysis. Expect to be hooked about 20-30 pages in when it starts getting juicy with elephant LSD experiments and whale aortas. All quite secular, this really reveals deeper laws of the universe on a cosmic scale. Pretty awesome.

Very interesting topics and some nice philosophical insights overlayed with the analysis. I particularly liked the presentation of well sourced data with high degrees of data and insight integrity. This book could’ve, and probably should’ve, been half the size. The drawn out anecdotes were unnecessary and cumbersome to read through at times. The section on companies was the least convincing, I thought. I enjoyed this book and I thought the insights and information were highly interesting . I thought the last chapter was well put together and a good summary and conclusion of all the topics.

He makes a very interesting case for scaling "laws" underlying organisms, cities, and companies (the company insights are absolutely fascinating). He also does a very good job of once over lightly for the math stuff. But he, like a lot of non-biologists who go into biology stuff, misses the point (for those who might be upset, I have degrees in Zoology and Genetics). Yes, the math shows that organisms grow and die, but does not prove or show that it is necessary for that to happen. Just because junk piles up over time doesn't mean that the laws of the universe require it to be that way. All he has done is "describe" what happens, not "explain" why, and therefore offers no insight into how to prevent it. And he uses up his last chapter and a postscript trying to justify huge expenditures in academic research to create an overarching Theory of Everything without pointing out what, if any, possible value that might provide. We already know that sustainability is a complex problem, but we also know that there are simple solutions available to us now, without mountains of research. For example, China showed one simple solution (only available, of course, to such a rigid authoritarian regime) with its One Child Policy. Finally, he turns everything into Lake Wobegone (where everyone is "above average") by making people and institutions appear to be more than they are though using qualifiers like "prestigious," "well-known," etc., as if he moves in select circles of only those few who can save the world.

Where Mandelbrot described the fractal structure of nature, West is describing the functionality of fractals in nature. This is the next level up. If you have any interest in fractals and how they apply to networks, you will enjoy reading this book. The extension of the concepts from individuals to cities, and then to corporations, is wonderful. This is laying more groundwork for the theory of how a city can be a larger scale analogy of an individual. His personality comes out in the book. He's embarrassed to describe how well his explanation fits all of the physiological data because it is so accurate, and yet so simple. But this is some of the most important work done in physiology for the last 30 years. He graciously acknowledges the contributions and efforts of the grad students and post docs who were involved. He shies away from the limelight. I've been a fan of Prof. West's work since the '90's, when the Science paper on the 3/4 power scaling law was published. So this book was a must read for me. The book is written at a simpler level than the literature papers, which is good for attracting a wider readership. However, I would have appreciated an appendix that really explained how mathematics was derived. It still seems mysterious to me. The other oddity is the lack of references between him and Adrian Bejan. They both are trying to describe similar phenomena, yet they don't seem to acknowledge each other.

Alle 10 Jahre gibt es ein Buch, welches mit grossem, neuen und relevanten Inhalt etwas fundiertes zu einer existiernden Diskussion beiträgt. Dieses Buch ist so eins....ohne Zweifel, eins der besten Bücher, die ich je gelesen habe. Anstatt das übliche emotionelle Gelaber über die Umweltthematik zu wiederkauen, kommt Geoffrey West seltsameweise zu den gleichen Schlüssen - aber diesmal mit mathematischen, fundierten Schlüssen. (Die benötigte Mathe ist nicht schwieriger, als die von der 10. Klasse). Absolut fazinierend und umwerfend ! Beginnend mit den von ihm endeckten Skaleneffektregeln bei Lebewesen (sehr interessant !) zeigt er wie Firmen, Städte und Gesellschaften auch an sich "Lebewesen" sind und was die logische Konsequenzen für die Umweltproblematik sind, und welche Lösungen möglich sind - vor allem in Bezug auf die Machbarkeit uns aus diesem Problem "heraus zu innovieren". Abosolute maximale Empfehlung...wenn ich 6 Sterne vergeben könnte, würde ich es tun

A fascinating book both for style and content connected to a great author. The best way to explain the difference between who searches for easy correlations in order to get easy successes and who examines in depth in order to search the causation; this last one is the only way to seize the very change, to spread the #innovation and eventually move from people to #smartpeople, from city to #smartcity!

Livre tout à fait passionnant offrant une vision réellement originale sur la structure du monde. Je recommande cette lecture à tous les curieux des visions rationnelles et nouvelles de ce chercheur.

Heerlijk, zo'n boek dat een samenhangend beeld geeft van zeer diverse verschijnselen. Diepgaand, en mooi geschreven zonder de techniek in te duiken, plus anekdotisch, een wijs boek.

An outstanding bóok however not for the weak of heart or appetite for basic math. I found it an eye opener for many things &basic questions that I've struggled with.