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jurgenappelo's review against another edition
5.0
Finally, some actual science, rather than opinions, about the issues of scaling complex systems.
mahir007's review against another edition
5.0
نظرًا لأننا كائنات اجتماعية تعيش في المدن الآن ، ما زلنا بحاجة إلى ما يعادل طاقة مصباح كهربائي من الطعام للبقاء على قيد الحياة - ما يتوافق مع معدل 90 واط فقط - ولكن بالإضافة إلى ذلك ، فإننا نحتاج الآن إلى منازل وتدفئة وإضاءة وسيارات وطرق وطائرات وأجهزة كمبيوتر وما إلى ذلك. وبالتالي ، فإن كمية الطاقة اللازمة لدعم الشخص العادي الذي يعيش في الولايات المتحدة ارتفعت إلى 11000 واط. معدل الأيض الاجتماعي هذا يعادل الاحتياجات الكاملة لحوالي عشرة من الأفيال. علاوة على ذلك ، خلال إجراء هذا الانتقال من المجال البيولوجي إلى الاجتماعي ، زاد إجمالي عدد سكاننا من بضعة ملايين فقط إلى أكثر من سبعة مليارات. لا عجب أن هناك أزمة طاقة وموارد تلوح في الأفق.
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Geoffrey West
Scale
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
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Geoffrey West
Scale
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
daviest's review against another edition
5.0
An incredible book with a terribly misrepresentative name.
The book is about complexity theory, that is, understanding complex systems. It details this emerging science, and shows how central it is to many of the most important fields studied today. I can highly recommend the book.
The book is about complexity theory, that is, understanding complex systems. It details this emerging science, and shows how central it is to many of the most important fields studied today. I can highly recommend the book.
stellarsphyr's review against another edition
2.0
I really wanted to like this. Perhaps I was spoiled by the other pop science books like The Gene or Thinking Fast and Slow. But I couldn’t help but think of the criticism “There are too many pages in between the cover of this book!”
I felt like any time a discussion was getting interesting, it was stopped and referred to a later chapter. But instead of pursuing something more interesting or relevant in the mean time, often the same ground was covered. Over and over and over again.
I also felt like some of the observations weren’t compelling theoretically. I kept getting the feeling that some things wouldn’t hold up on further scrutiny and that the guidelines of scale (absolutely true) were being presented as unassailable laws rather than practical and interesting heuristics. At times, it seems like scalability in these terms isn’t falsifiable.
Take for instance a discussion on city size where the populations of New York, LA, and Chicago line up with a mathematical model. Yes, now, but I’m 1980 when Chicago and LA were nearly identical in terms of population, was it still true?
Further, I wanted some personal investment from the author. Some other narrative to help tie this together and help me see practicality more readily. The aforementioned books were great at this, and I still remember the author’s personal stories. West tries at times, but it doesn’t land.
It was the first time I was utterly bored with a pop sci/math book in quite some time.
I felt like any time a discussion was getting interesting, it was stopped and referred to a later chapter. But instead of pursuing something more interesting or relevant in the mean time, often the same ground was covered. Over and over and over again.
I also felt like some of the observations weren’t compelling theoretically. I kept getting the feeling that some things wouldn’t hold up on further scrutiny and that the guidelines of scale (absolutely true) were being presented as unassailable laws rather than practical and interesting heuristics. At times, it seems like scalability in these terms isn’t falsifiable.
Take for instance a discussion on city size where the populations of New York, LA, and Chicago line up with a mathematical model. Yes, now, but I’m 1980 when Chicago and LA were nearly identical in terms of population, was it still true?
Further, I wanted some personal investment from the author. Some other narrative to help tie this together and help me see practicality more readily. The aforementioned books were great at this, and I still remember the author’s personal stories. West tries at times, but it doesn’t land.
It was the first time I was utterly bored with a pop sci/math book in quite some time.
maxstone98's review against another edition
4.0
Really 4.5 stars I think.
Scale was one of those books that introduces you to notions that significantly improve ones understanding of how life works. Not at the level of Darwin's insights (how life works) or Newton's insights (how physical stuff works) in terms of breadth and applicability and sense of "aha"-ness, but one level down from that, which is still quite a gift. It answered a lot of questions about how things grow and change in a single framework guided by just a few (basically 3) principles. why aren't there mammals bigger than a blue whale or smaller then a vole or whatnot, for example. or why one stops physically growing and how that differs and doesn't differ by species. and how average commuting times change with other variables (to a first approximation, they don't)
In addition to the big picture, there's a wealth of super interesting things I didn't know. Did you know that you can't specify the length of a coastline (or other fractal-y thing) without specifying a resolution? Did you know that all mammals species have (to a first approximation) the same expected number of heartbeats? etc.
On the negative side, and what kept this from being an unambiguous 5 star book, was that the writing wasn't great. The sentences were too long and had too many filler words. And the author routinely started a sentence by saying "it is amazing / surprising / remarkable / etc that...." That's ok on occasion to really highlight something, but for routine use its more powerful just to say something interesting, and not announce it as interesting. And finally the book at times reads like an extended ad for the Santa Fe Institute, where the author did much of his work. I'm sure the place is great, but the plaudits for it were excessive and didn't add to the story he was trying to tell and the information he was trying to impart.
I'm not sure if you can get away with reading just the best parts without the stuff leading up to them, but chapters 3-5 were the real treasures.
Scale was one of those books that introduces you to notions that significantly improve ones understanding of how life works. Not at the level of Darwin's insights (how life works) or Newton's insights (how physical stuff works) in terms of breadth and applicability and sense of "aha"-ness, but one level down from that, which is still quite a gift. It answered a lot of questions about how things grow and change in a single framework guided by just a few (basically 3) principles. why aren't there mammals bigger than a blue whale or smaller then a vole or whatnot, for example. or why one stops physically growing and how that differs and doesn't differ by species. and how average commuting times change with other variables (to a first approximation, they don't)
In addition to the big picture, there's a wealth of super interesting things I didn't know. Did you know that you can't specify the length of a coastline (or other fractal-y thing) without specifying a resolution? Did you know that all mammals species have (to a first approximation) the same expected number of heartbeats? etc.
On the negative side, and what kept this from being an unambiguous 5 star book, was that the writing wasn't great. The sentences were too long and had too many filler words. And the author routinely started a sentence by saying "it is amazing / surprising / remarkable / etc that...." That's ok on occasion to really highlight something, but for routine use its more powerful just to say something interesting, and not announce it as interesting. And finally the book at times reads like an extended ad for the Santa Fe Institute, where the author did much of his work. I'm sure the place is great, but the plaudits for it were excessive and didn't add to the story he was trying to tell and the information he was trying to impart.
I'm not sure if you can get away with reading just the best parts without the stuff leading up to them, but chapters 3-5 were the real treasures.