Title:
Scale : the universal laws of growth, innovation, sustainability, and the pace of life in organisms, cities, economies, and companies
Author:
Publication Date:
2017
Publication Information:
New York : Penguin Press, 2017.
©2017
Physical Description:
479 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
ISBN:
9781594205583
Abstract:
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 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.
Contents:
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.
Language:
English
