Scale

Everything comes to simple term AWARENESS. Which is powerful on every scale. Why people fail is every one have ambition but only few understand the PROCESS.. We can't grow based on EMOTIONS.. Same PROCESS - Energy -> Metabolism -> Entropy works everywhere I guess

Very useful transdisciplinary book if you want to understand common network features among complex systems like mammals, cities, companies etc. Essentially a physicist analyzing biological and socioeconomic aspects of our life through a mechanistic approach to see underlying common patterns. Ultimately the author applies this knowledge to address global sustainability. I had high expectations on this aspect, but I was bit disappointed to see the framework he develops to address global sustainability but doesn't propose solutions. It is up to the reader to take it further. Overall, a technical book well written for an "intelligent layman".

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.

Very interesting book. Multidisciplinary, informative and integrates scaling laws across many disciplines -biology, physics, geography, business, innovation, sociology, structures, networks, systems. Highly recommended.

This is a mind blowing account of how scale predicts a lot of trends in biology and socio economic structures.

Just a different concept.

Complex things like non linearity and proportionality are written in a beautiful understandable manner. SO much fun to read. wished the fonts and the pictures were largers- thats why 4 stars not the content

Great book. Great take on scalability of things. Would definitely recommend to anyone interested in this subject.

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.

ENGLISH: Geoffrey West is well-known as one of the developers of the science of scale, which studies the fractal structure of many phenomenons in living beings, societies and economies. This book popularizes his contributions to this science in a pleasant easy-to-follow way. Figure 31 and its description is wrong. The growth of human population is not an exponential (as he says at the beginning), but a logistic curve that went through inflection around 1985. True, he mentions later that indefinite exponential growths are not sustainable and their growth finally stops, but I don't think that's a sufficient correction to the previous mistake. By the way, his growth curve in a closed system (in chapter 5, paragraph 3) is quite similar to those I included in two of my books: [book:Human cultures and evolution|15213517] (1979) and [book:Evolución biológica y evolución cultural en la historia de la vida y del hombre|35338306] (2017). In this book he exhibits more than once his philosophy; he is clearly adept to the theory of emergent materialism. Of course, it's his right, if he doesn't present his philosophy as science (he usually doesn't do that). Sometimes the book is repetitive saying things over and over again. Being a popularization, the author probably wants his ideas to be clear to the reader. However, for those who know something about the matter, it's somewhat tedious. ESPAÑOL: Geoffrey West es uno de los desarrolladores de la ciencia de la escala, que estudia la estructura fractal de muchos fenómenos de los seres vivos, sociedades y economías. Este libro divulga sus contribuciones a esta ciencia de manera muy amena y fácil de seguir. La figura 31 y su descripción son incorrectas. El crecimiento de la población humana no es una curva exponencial (como dice al principio), sino una curva logística que pasó por el punto de inflexión hacia 1985. Es cierto que más adelante menciona que los crecimientos exponenciales indefinidos no son sostenibles y su crecimiento acaba por detenerse, pero no me parece que la corrección sea suficiente. A propósito, la curva de crecimiento del capítulo 5, apartado 3 es muy semejante a las que yo incluí en dos de mis libros: [book:Human cultures and evolution|15213517] (1979) y [book:Evolución biológica y evolución cultural en la historia de la vida y del hombre|35338306] (2017). En este libro demuestra más de una vez su filosofía; es claramente adepto a la teoría del materialismo emergentista. Sí, tiene perfecto derecho a hacerlo, siempre que no presente su filosofía como ciencia (y en efecto, no lo hace). A veces es muy repetitivo; dice las cosas una vez y otra. Sin duda, al ser un libro divulgativo, quiere que sus ideas queden claras para el lector. Sin embargo, para quien sabe algo del asunto, resulta un poco tedioso.