European University Institute Library

Scale, the universal laws of growth, innovation, sustainability, and the pace of life in organisms, cities, economies, and companies, Geoffrey West

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 457-464) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Scale

bibliography

973480868

Geoffrey West

the universal laws of growth, innovation, sustainability, and the pace of life in organisms, cities, economies, and companies

"Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks... Fascinated by issues of aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science, creating a new understanding of energy use and metabolism: West found that despite the riotous diversity in the sizes of mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other... West's work has been gaming changing for biologists, but then he made the even bolder move of exploring his work's applicability...and applied...[it] to the business and social world."--, Provided by publisher

The big picture -- The measure of all things: an introduction to scaling -- The simplicity, unity, and complexity of life -- The fourth dimension of life: growth, aging, and death -- From the Anthropocene to the Urbanocene: a planet dominated by cities -- Prelude to a science of cities -- Toward a science of cities -- Consequences and predictions: from mobility and the pace of life to social connectivity, diversity, metabolism, and growth -- Toward a science of companies -- The vision of a grand unified theory of sustainability