Scale

Another great about systems and how they pertain to various faucets of human life. Understanding how systems scale, taper off and die helps think through large scale architecture choices.

A mouse's heart beats ~600 times per minute, that of an elephant only 30 times. While a mouse's heart rhythms and metabolism are super fast, the elephant lives his life slow. Both of their hearts beat about 1 billion heartbeats during their lifetime. In fact, this applies to all mammals. Including humans. We all get 1 billion heartbeats! Because we're all scaled versions of each other!!

This book blows your mind multiple times. If one thinks about all the variety of animals and organisms evolution has produced, in all their colors, forms and extravagances. One might think random walks through evolution's candy store. But! We're all bound together and built from the same underlying blueprint: a life-sustaining network that cycles energy, resources and information through our bodies.

Quarter power scaling laws emerge mathematically from the way our blood vessels traverse our bodies in a fractal geometry. Bigger bodies are more economical, and require less food in comparison to smaller bodies. The economies of scale! The blood in our cardiovascular system acts likes alternate current close to the heart, while it becomes direct current the further it spreads out to reach every single cell. After adolescence when our heart pumping mechanism reaches the threshold where it physically can't supply any more surplus to its cells, growth stops. From then on all energy is used to maintain and repair.

This is complexity science and physics explaining biology. And West even goes further, and applies the same method to cities and companies. Because what are cities besides a socioeconomic network of people sustained through a variety of infrastructure networks (electricity, heat, water, and all the other plumbing under our streets and buildings). But while organisms (and companies) eventually die, cities flourish the bigger they get. More people means more of everything: more innovation, more wealth, more education, more diversity, more crime, more disease.

The book thins out a bit towards the end where he attempts to take this in the direction of sustainability (waiting for his followup I guess), but that takes nothing from the fact that this is an excellent book, and I've learned so much.