Complexity and Transdisciplinarity; Science

for the 21st Century(?)!

GEOFFREY WEST

SANTA FE INSTITUTE

Q: Some say that while the 20th century was the century of physics, we are now entering the century of biology. What do you think of this? A: I think the next century will be the century of complexity.

Stephen Hawking interview, January, 2000

I shall not today attempt further to define “pornography” and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so, but I know it when I see it…….!!!

Potter Stewart !Justice of the United States Supreme Court.!Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964)!

I shall not today attempt further to define “complexity” and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so, but I know it when I see it…….!!!

Geoffrey West !Former President of the Santa Fe Institute!Nanyang Technical University, Singapore (2009)!

NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION:

NEWTON’S LAW OF GRAVITATION:

€

F = ma = md2 rdt 2

€

F = G m1m2

r2

THEORY g/2 = 1.001 159 652 177 60 (520) [4.4 ppt]

EXPERIMENT g/2 = 1.001 159 652 180 73 (28) [0.28 ppt]

QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS

FEYNMAN DIAGRAMS

MAGNETIC MOMENT OF THE ELECTRON

Scaling of economics with energy use

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ENTROPY!!

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

• MANY COMPONENTS • MANY INDIVIDUAL ACTORS / AGENTS • MULTI SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL SCALES • STRONGLY COUPLED / INTERACTING • NON-LINEAR • SENSITIVITY TO BOUNDARY CONDITIONS (CHAOS) • EMERGENT PHENOMENA / MULTIPLE PHASES • UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES • ADAPTIVE / EVOLVING • HISTORICALLY CONTINGENT / PATH DEPENDENT • ROBUST / RESILIENT • NON-EQUILIBRIUM • UNDERLYING SIMPLICITY • COMPLICATED vs COMPLEX

Non- linear dynamics (solitons, chaos, turbulence,…….)

Simulations: simple rules can lead to complex structures and behaviours

Genetic algorithms Agent based modelling Cellular automata Artificial life

Universal Theory of Complexity?? (Analogue to Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics and Information Theory)

ENERGY & RESOURCE (METABOLISM) vs. INFORMATION (GENOMICS)

SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS:

dU = dW + dQ dQ = TdS

STATISTICAL MECHANICS:

ENTROPY: S = -k Σ (p log p) dS ≥ 0

INFORMATION THEORY

MAJOR CHALLENGE TO INTEGRATE

• SEARCH FOR UNDERLYING LAWS AND PRINCIPLES LEADING TO A QUANTITATIVE PREDICTIVE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

• CAN THERE BE “NEWTON’S LAWS OF COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS”?

• COMPLEXITY

• COARSE- GRAINED DESCRIPTION

• COARSE- GRAINED DESCRIPTION

• KINETIC THEORY

• QUARK MODEL

• LONGEVITY

WHY DO WE LIVE ~100 YEARS AND NOT 1000, OR 2-3 YEARS LIKE A MOUSE?

WHERE DOES A TIME-SCALE OF 100 YEARS COME FROM?

HOW IS IT GENERATED FROM FUNDAMENTAL MOLECULAR TIME-SCALES OF GENES AND RESPIRATORY ENZYMES?

WHY DO WE NEED TO SLEEP ABOUT EIGHT HOURS EACH NIGHT?

WHY DO MICE HAVE MANY MORE TUMOURS/GRAM OF TISSUE THAN WE DO AND WHALES AHEV ALMOST NONE?

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GROWING BABIES IN YOUR BODY AND GROWING TUMORS (OR ORGANS)?

ARE CITIES AND COMPANIES JUST VERY LARGE ORGANISMS

SATISFYING THE LAWS OF BIOLOGY?

WHY DO ALL COMPANIES DIE WHEREAS ALMOST ALL CITIES

SURVIVE?

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

log

num

ber o

f tru

nks

0.5 1

1.5 2

2.5 3

log trunk diameter (cm)

N = 55 D-1.95

N = 62 D-2.07

1981

1947

INTERSPECIFIC SIZE DISTRIBUTION All species in a Malaysian Rainforest

Science, Aug 18, 1989

OVERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS 18 RESIDENT FACULTY: 13 PROFESSORS (~ 8 FTE’S; 5 FULL TIME) 5 RESEARCH PROFESSORS (~ 2.5 FTE’S; 5 FULL TIME) 5 SABBATICAL VISITORS 13 POST-DOCS 96 EXTERNAL FACULTY > 300 VISITORS/YEAR 20-30 WORKSHOPS/YEAR 161 PUBLISHED PAPERS/YEAR 7244 NUMBER OF CITATIONS/YEAR 29 STAFF 55 BUSINESS NETWORK MEMBERS ANNUAL BUDGET: ~ $11M 35% GOVERNMENT, 10% FOUNDATIONS, 40% INDIVIDUALS, 15% BUSINESSES

The Santa Fe Institute is “…the formal birthplace of the interdisciplinary study of complex systems now known as ‘complexity science’.”*

* A Survey of Federal Departments and Agencies, Private Foundations, Universities, and Independent Education and Research Centers, produced by the Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy, October 2003.

• Continue to ask some of the big questions • Important fundamental problems at and across all spatio-temporal scales • Complex Adaptive Systems • Emergent behavior and multiscale phenomena • Search for simplicity in complexity:

Universalities Underlying Principles Regularities Common Mechanisms Order Laws Patterns

• Open, Catalytic, Synergistic Transdisciplinary Transformational

• Encourage serious speculation and risk taking • Generalist vs. Specialist • Basic - Applied - Spin-off

Some Characteristics of SFI Science

•  How far can the biological and social sciences (complex adaptive systems) be mathematized and made quantitatively predictive in terms of quantifiable “universal” principles”?

Quantitive vs. Qualitative Reductive vs. Integrated Simple vs. Complex Copernican - Galilean - Newtonian

• Are there fundamental laws of life? Uniqueness of metabolism? Grand unified theory of ecology? Can we manufacture life?

• Are social organizations an extension of biology? States, cities, corporations, armies…

• How does the microscopic (e.g.genes) determine the macroscopic, including social structures and social dynamics?

Some Science Directions

• Are there quantitative universal laws of history?

• What is the origin of ordered hierarchical networks? Do they obey universal dynamics?

• Inter-relationship between energy (resources, materials), entropy and information (e.g. genetic, neural and social networks)

• Modeling the structure and dynamics of society

• Integrated theory of sustainability (energy, environment, markets, social structure, growth, innovation…)

• Are there general underlying principles of robustness, resilience, innovation and evolution?

Noisy fractal systems; Fault tolerance

• New paradigms of computation (software and hardware) inspired by biological information processing.

• Is evolvability software a realistic “industrial grade” strategy?

• Is there a science of catastrophes, outlying events; what are their origins and dynamics?

Tsunamis, hurricanes, stock market,………

• “Theoretical” Medicine based on general underlying principles Cancer Sleep Aging and mortality Design Vaccines

• Mind, consciousness and the structure and organization of the brain

• Are there general principles that govern conflicts in biological and social systems?

• Lying and deception across human and non human systems

• Art, Mathematics, music and complexity

Fundamental Principles of Life, Health, and Disease Cancer – Regularities and Irregularities in Cellular

Growth Aging and Mortality Designer Vaccines Pandemics Evolutionary Dynamics Health Care Networks Re-engineering Medicine Laws and Origins of Life Artificial Life (Organic and Inorganic) Biochemistry of Life; Uniqueness of Metabolism Universal Physical Principles of Life; Networks and

Scaling

Underlying Dynamics of Social and Economic Behavior

Universalities in Social Organizations City Growth and Decline Social Niche Construction Origins of Societies Social Evolutionary Dynamics Co-evolution of Behavior and Social Interactions Conflicts and Patterns of Political Violence Quantitative Human History Evolution and Dynamics of Cooperation Markets and Money Non-Equilibrium Economics Micro-economic Approaches to Explaining Macro-

economic Phenomena Neuroscience-inspired Approaches to Economic

Decision-Making

Energy, Ecology, and Environment Unified Theory of Ecology; Environmental Impact Energy Sustainability and the Environment Coupled Human and Environmental Interactions

Overarching Themes and Techniques Complex Adaptive Systems Networks Robustness Evolution Innovation Scaling Agent Based Modeling Non-linear Dynamics

Physics, Computation and Communication Physics of Information Self-Organized Criticality Pattern Formation Evolutionary Computation Biologically Inspired Computation and Computer Security Origin and Evolution of Human Language

Examples of Collaborations •  Financial Markets, Volatility, and Risk: Doyne Farmer (Physics, SFI), John Geanakoplos

(Economics, Yale. SFI)

•  Metabolism and the Origin of Life: Eric Smith (Physics, SFI), Harold Morowitz, (Biology, George Mason, SFI), Shelly Copley (Chemistry, U. of Colorado)

•  Biological Computation: David Krakauer (Biology, SFI), Walter Fontana (Chemistry, Harvard, SFI)

•  Innovation: Doug Erwin (Paleobiology, Smithsonian, SFI), David Krakauer (Biology, SFI), Doyne Farmer (Physics, SFI)

•  Disease Networks: Lauren Meyers (Evolutionary Biology, U. of Texas), Mercedes Pascal (Theoretical Ecology, U. of Michigan)

•  Scaling Laws in Biology and Society: Geoffrey West (Physics, SFI), Jim Brown (Biology, UNM, SFI), Brian Enquist (Biology, U. of Arizona, SFI), Luis Bettencourt (Physics, LANL, SFI)

•  Scaling and Dynamics of Social Organizations: David Lane (Statistics, Modena/Reggio, SFI), Sander van der Leeuw (Anthropology, U. of Arizona), Denise Pumain (Geography, Sorbonne), Geoffrey West (Physics, SFI)

• Origin and Evolution of Language. Murray Gell-Mann (Physics, SFI), George Starostin (Linguistics, Moscow), Ilia Peiros (Linguistics, Moscow)

• Linguistic Change and Evolution: Daniel Hruschka (Social Science, SFI), Morten Christensen (Cognitive Psychology, Cornell), Steven Lansing (Anthropology, Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, SFI)

• Biologically Inspired Computation: Stephanie Forrest (Computer Science, UNM, SFI), David Ackley (Computer Science, UNM, SFI), Gabriela Barrantes (University of Cost Rica)

• Evolution of Viruses and Host-Virus Interactions: (Bette Korber, Theoretical Biology, LANL, SFI), Tanmoy Bhattacharya (Physics, LANL, SFI)

• Theoretical Neuroscience: Charles Stevens (Neuroscience, Salk Institute, UCSD, SFI), William Bialek (Physics, Princeton), Nancy Kopell (Physics, Boston University), Chris Wood (Neuroscience, SFI)

• Physics of Networks: Aaron Clauset (Computer Science, SFI), Mark Newman (Physics, Michigan, SFI), Michelle Girvan (Physics, University of Maryland), Cris Moore (Computer Science, UNM, SFI).

• Evolution of Technology: Doyne Farmer (Physics, SFI), Jessika Trancik (Materials Science, SFI), Brian Arthur (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, SFI)

• Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics: Murray Gell-Mann (Physics, SFI), James Hartle (Physics, University of California Santa Barbara), Seth Lloyd (Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

• Energy and Environmental Sustainability: Doyne Farmer (Physics, SFI), Geoffrey West (Physics, SFI), Dan Arvisu (Director, National Renewable Energy Laboratory), Doug Arent (Engineering, National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

SFI Workshop and Working Groups

December 2007 Models of Emergent Behavior in Complex Adaptive Systems, David Pines, Los Alamos National Laboratory,

Simon Levin, Princeton University, Carl Simon, University of Michigan

January 2008 Is there a Physics of Society, Michelle Girvan, University of Maryland, Aaron Clauset, SFI New Statistical Approaches to Southwest Archeology, Doug Erwin, SFI and Smithsonian Institution Life History and Ant-Plant Interactions, Deborah Gordon, Stanford University, Rodolfo Dirzo, Stanford University Organizational Dynamics, Business Network Theme Week

February 2008 Building Integrative Models of Linguistic Change, Dan Hrushka, SFI, Morten Christiansen, Cornell University,

Steve Lansing, SFI and University of Arizona Organizational Dynamics Theme Week, Business Network, Shannon Larsen, SFI Science Board Language Working Group, Chris Wood, SFI From Network Structure to Epidemiological Predication, Lauren Meyers, University of Texas Austin

March 2008 The Inheritance of Wealth and the Dynamics of Inequality in Small Scale Societies, San Bowles, SFI Social Insects; From Ants to Humans, John Miller, SFI and Carnegie Mellon Reconsidering Counter Insurgency, Daniel Branch (University of Exeter), Stathis Kalyvas (Yale University) &

Elisabeth J Wood (Yale University and SFI) Dominance, Leveling and Egaliarianism in Primates and Other Animals, Sam Bowles, SFI Complex Adaptive Systems Thinking in the Study of History, David Krakauer, Ken Pomeranz, John Lewis

Gaddis Control in Distributed Networks, Shannon Larsen

June 2008 Compartmentation, Phase Separation and the Origin of Life,,Harold Morowitz,George Mason University, Eric Smith SFI, Shelley Copley, University of Colorado, Nigel Goldenfield, University of Illinois Complex Systems Summer School - Santa Fe, Dan Rockmore, Dartmouth and SFI. Finance Week, Business Network Graduate Workshop in Computation Social Science Modeling and Complexity, John Miller and Scott Page

July 2008 Principles of Repurposing, Jon Wilkins, SFI, Jessika Trancik, SFI First Steps Toward Understanding Market Ecologies, Doyne Farmer Comparative Study of Robustness, Resilience and Vulnerability among Five Prehistoric Societies in the Greater Southwest and Northern Mexico: The IHOPE Project, Sander van der Leeuw

August 2008 Modeling Technological Innovation, Doyne Farmer, SFI Complexity and International Relations: First Steps to an Emerging Paradigm,” Joshua Cooper Ramo, Simon, Doug Erwin Innovation and the Pace of Change, Shannon Larsen Networks and Navigation, Aaron Clauset, Dmitri Krioukov & KC Claffy & Cris Moore

September 2008 Visualizing Complex Systems and the Complexity of Vision, Shannon Larsen 2008 ARCS Workshop, Robert Ghanea-Hercock

October 2008 Modern Malware III, Matt Williamson (Sana Security) & Eric Davis (Google) Forum on Risk, Shannon Larsen Cosmology & Society in the Ancient Amerindian World, George Gumerman and Murray Gell-Mann

November 2008 Annual Business Network & Board of Trustees Symposium: Open Questions in Science, Education and Business The Human Impact of the Last Glacial Maximum Murray Gell-Mann, Illia Peiros and Henry Wright

December 2008 Complex Systems Summer School 2008 - Bariloche, Argentina, Directors: Miguel A. Fuentes, and Pablo A. Marquet, Statistical Inference for Complex Networks, Aaron Clauset and Cris Moore

January 2009 Neuro-Cognitive Niche Construction, Marc Feldman and Jessica Flack Self-Regenerative Approaches to Computer Security, Stephanie Forrest and John Knight Collective Decision Making: From Neurons to SocietiesJohn Miller, Nigel Franks and Tom Seeley

February 2009 Emergence of Hierarchy and Inequality, Sam Bowles Dynamic Hierarchies Theme Week – Shannon Larsen

March 2009 The Complexity of the Gene Concept, David Krakauer, Peter F. Stadler), Sonja Prohaskka, Manfred Laubichler Evolution, Complexity and the Law, Jenna Bednar,Jessica Flack and David Krakauer The Coevolution of Behaviors and Institutions,Sam Bowles Models of Innovation and Propagation in Language Change, Dan Hruschka & Morten Christiansen

April 2009 Science Board Symposium – David Campbell, Simon Levin, Geoffrey West Science Board Meeting – David Campbell, Simon Levin

June 2009 Complex Systems Summer School 2009, Ginger Richardson & Dan Rockmore Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), Ginger Richardson Graduate Workshop in Computational Social Science Modeling and Complexity, John Miller & Scott Page

July 2009 FIBR Leadership Workshop, Ginger Richardson and Irene Lee Summer School on Global Sustainability, Doyne Farmer Systems Biology and the Physical Foundations of Aging, Aviv Bergman, Walter Fontana, Michal Jazwinski, Anna McCormick, Geoffrey West

August 2009 Quantitative and Systems Immunology, Tom Kepler & Cliburn Chan

September 2009 Business Network Theme Week — Business Network Theme Week: The Future is Not What it Used to Be, Shannon Larsen From Insect Nests to Human Architecture, Ricard Sole, Guy Theraulaz

October 2009 Business Network Topical Meeting —Forum on Risk 2009, Shannon Larsen

November 2009 Annual Business Network and Board of Trustees' Symposium

February 2010 Persistent Inequality: The Dynamics of Wealth Inequality in Pre-modern Societies, Sam Bowles

Geoffrey West - Scaling in Biology

Agent-Based Models in the Social Sciences

How many species of mass M? This slide shows some recent results for a diffusion-reaction model of species body size (mass) variation over evolutionary time. The analytic solution of this simple model agrees surprisingly well with empirical data on existing bird and mammal species, and complements recent simulation-based work by Aaron Clauset and Douglas Erwin.

Braess's paradox in urban road networks.(a) Network of principal roads in the Boston-Cambridge area (both solid and dotted lines; the thickness represents the number of lanes). We assume users travel from Harvard Square in the northwest of the map to Boston Common in the southeast. For a traffic volume of 10,000 vehicles per hour, drivers need 10 minutes from start to end. The color of each link indicates the additional travel time in our simulation when that link is cut.Black dotted lines represent links whose removal reduces(!) the travel time, i.e., allowing drivers to use these links in fact creates more congestion than blocking these streets. This counter-intuitive phenomenon is called "Braess's paradox".(b) and (c): The same phenomenon is observed in London and New York for trips between Borough and Farringdon (London) and Washington Market Park and Queens Midtown Tunnel (NY).!

Michael Gastner

SFI Postdoctoral Fellow

Santa Fe Institute authors (# of times cited): 39,782 Average citations per item: 32.11 Databases=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI Results found: 1,23 Note: 2008 numbers includes only up to October 2008

2004 13

2005 10

2006 19

2007 26

2008 18

Source: ISI Web of Knowledge

Harvard 301 Princeton 67 Stanford 121 Arizona 52 Michigan 60 Texas 30 UC Davis 39 UCSB 42 Penn 63 Washington 82

IMPERIAL COLLEGE 38

CAMBRIDGE 77

OXFORD 76

A review of all computer science departments published in PNAS SFI ranked 4th in the number of acknowledgements in publications after Carnegie Mellon, CalTech and MIT. [PNAS]

SFI has moved into the top 1% of institutions in the field of Physics, according to ESI’s impact rating of highly cited papers. [Thomson Scientific’s Essential Scientific Indicators (ESI)]

SFI listed as the “Rising Star” Institution for Environmental Science/Ecology

[Thomson Scientific’s Essential Scientific Indicators, March 2008]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery… “The advent of new institutions in related areas of interdisciplinary science reflects the growing importance and recognition of the sort of science pioneered by SFI (“imitation is the greatest form of flattery”). Despite this, SFI remains quite unique in its extraordinary breath, its dedication to risk-taking, and its unmatched network of superb scientists, corporate, business and industrial associates. It has been a remarkable and highly successful experiment. For it to continue to its next phase we must be given the means and freedom to compete with the best.”

University of Michigan Center for the Study of Complex Systems University of California Davis Center for Complex Systems Institute Para Limas Bristol Centre for Complexity Sciences Rhone-Alpes Complex Systems Institute Institute for Complex Systems, Paris – Ile-de-France Warwick Complexity Center, University of Warwick Instituto de Sistemas Complejos de Valparaiso General Integration of the Applications of Complexity in Science CeiBa Complex Systems Institute Bogota

Books by SFI Authors

Books by SFI Authors

Cormac McCarthy’s book was adapted into a screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen and received four Academy Awards at the ceremony held on February 24, 2008

•  Wired magazine (Oct. 2006): Since its founding in 1984, the nonprofit research center has united top minds from diverse fields to study cellular biology, computer networks, and other systems that underlie our lives. The patterns they've discovered have illuminated some of the most pressing issues of our time and, along the way, served as the basis for what's now called the science of complexity.

•  Roger Hollingsworth, well-known social scientist, addressing a subcommittee of the NSF National Science Board charged with reviewing “transformational” science: My colleagues and I have studied approximately 175 research organizations on both sides of the Atlantic, and in many respects the Santa Fe Institute is the ideal type of organization which facilitates creative thinking.

Rolling Stone (December 2007) Apocalypse: The Acclaimed Author’s Dark vision and the Scientists Who Inspire Him

The world’s most unlikely genius club meets in a sprawling adobe retreat amid the pinion scrub and juniper trees in the hills above Santa Fe…where teams of scientists from separate fields study the Big Questions: Why financial markets crash. How terrorists form. Ways viruses spread… but among the rarified gathering of leading intellects is…

“Critical Mass” Philip Ball (2004)

[Past Editor of Nature] “…the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico--the center of the intellectual universe for any researcher interested in complex interacting systems, whether in physics, biology, geophysics, social science, or anything else.”

In the Beat of a Heart Life, Energy, and the Unity of Nature [2007]

John Whitfield [Science Writer, Nature] “As a scientist looking to jump fields, however, he had one big advantage:

The Santa Fe Institute. The institute was set up in 1984 by a group of senior researchers at Los Alamos, along with other eminent physicists from across the United States, to address the problems in chaos theory, complex systems, and emergence that were beginning to make an impact across the physical, biological, and social sciences--problems that seemed somehow to combine hideous complexity with tantalizing flashes of order. Such complex dynamics and emergent order were a common feature of any system consisting of many interacting parts, be it stock markets, cells, ecosystems, or societies. The institute was intended to be truly multidisciplinary--it has no departments, only researchers. Since then, Santa Fe and complexity theory have become almost synonymous.

Twenty years on, the institute, now situated on a hill on the town’s outskirts, must be one of the most fun places to be a scientist. The researchers’ offices, and the communal areas they spill into for lunch and impromptu seminars, have picture windows looking out across the mountains and desert. Hiking trails lead out of the car park. In the institute’s kitchen, you can eavesdrop on a conversation between a paleontologist, an expert on quantum computing, and a physicist who works on financial markets. A cat and a dog

amble down the corridors and in and out of offices. The atmosphere is like a cross between the senior common room of a Cambridge college and one of the West Coast temples of geekdom, such as Google or Pixar.”

SFI in the Media (from June 1, 2008 to present)

Some Educational Impacts at SFI

SFI Prize for Scientific Excellence “Adventures in Modeling” Project

SFI Public Lecture Series and Ulam Lectures

Complex Systems Summer Schools

Project G.U.T.S.

Global Sustainability Summer School July 12-15, 2009

Co-directors: Doug Arent, Director, Strategic Energy Analysis, National Renewable Energy Laboratory J. Doyne Farmer, Professor, Santa Fe Institute John Schellnhuber, Professor and Director, Potsdam Institute Jessika Trancik, SFI Postdoctoral Fellow

Bariloche, Argentina

Co-directors: Miguel Fuentes and Pablo Marquet

Science Writers Workshop Held at SFI in past years

Sandra Blakeslee, New York Times science writer and the author, with V. S. Ramachandran, of Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind and numerous other books

George Johnson, New York Times science writer, whose books include Miss Leavitt's Stars, Fire in the Mind, and In the Palaces of Memory

John Horgan, a former editor and writer for Scientific American, the director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and the author of four books including The End of Science and The

Undiscovered Mind

Charles Petit, a former science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and U.S. News and World Report who now surveys the scene from his position at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker

Peter Lewis, whose many positions have included senior editor and technology columnist for Fortune magazine and assistant science editor for the New York Times

David Corcoran, deputy science editor of the New York Times plans to join us, and Michelle Nijhuis and Christie Aschwanden will conduct a special session on freelancing. Please see latest updates for details

Lucy Odling-Smee, Nature

Jim Giles, New Scientist

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning.

Max Planck (1858-1947) The Philosophy of Physics [1936]

Max Perutz (1914 - 2002)

Max Perutz’s legacy can be found in the numerous awards gained by members of this one laboratory - nine Nobel prizes, four Orders of Merit (a peculiarly British honor, bestowed by the sovereign as a special mark of favor) and eight Copley medals (the highest honor of the Royal Society). The phenomenal success of the laboratory is well known and owes much to Perutz’s influence. He believed in giving people independence. He led by example, aiming to spend 90% or more of his time working at the bench, and expected others to do likewise. He treated everyone, from the youngest technician, with real personal respect, humanity and interest, and turned down a knighthood because he thought it would separate him from the younger people in the lab. He kept fully conversant with everyone’s work, by making a point of sitting with different groups of people at coffee time, lunch or tea in the marvelous canteen… which became - and still is - the intellectual center of the laboratory. All this produced a marvelous atmosphere and a unique place to work.

“Impishly, whenever he was asked whether there are simple guidelines along which to organize research so that it would be highly creative, he would say: no politics, no committees, no reports, no referees, no interviews; just gifted, highly motivated people picked by a few men of good judgment. Certainly not the way research is usually run in our fuzzy democracy but, from a man of great gifts and of extremely good judgment, such a reply is not elitist. It is simply to be expected, for Max had practiced it and shown that this recipe is right for those who, in science, want to beat the world by getting the best in the world to beat a path to their door.”

SCALABILITY

RESILIENCE

EVOLVABILITY

GROWTH

Blue Whale 200,000,000g

Shrew 2g

Elephant 2,000,000g

Mammals vary in size by 8 orders of magnitude

Whole-organism metabolic rate (B) scales as the 3/4 power of body mass (M)

B ∝ M 3/4

Hemmingson 1960

€

B∝M 0.780 ± 0.037

PLANTS/TREES

METABOLIC RATE INCREASES NON-LINEARLY WITH SIZE

B ~ M3/4

OVER 27 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE SINCE Ncells ~ M NAIVELY MIGHT EXPECT B ~ M

HOWEVER, IF MASS (SIZE) INCREASES BY A FACTOR OF 10,000 (104)

THEN METABOLIC RATE INCREASES BY ONLY A

FACTOR OF 1,000 (103)

SPECIFIC METABOLIC RATE (PER UNIT MASS)

€

€

BM∝M−1/ 4

SO METABOLIC RATE OF AVERAGE CELL

€

Bcell ∝M−1/ 4

heart rate scales as -1/4 power of body mass

Metabolic rate sets the pace of life small animals live fast and die young

MORE FUNDAMENTALLY, ACROSS AEROBIC METABOLISM: THE NUMBER OF TURNOVERS IN A LIFETIME OF CytO

ENZYMES (RESPIRATORY COMPLEX) IS AN APPROXIMATE INVARIANT (~ 1016)

EXTRAORDINARY SYSTEMATIC ECONOMY OF SCALE (THE BIGGER YOU ARE, THE LESS NEEDED PER

“CAPITA”)

SIMILAR SCALING HOLDS TRUE FOR ALL PHYSIOLOGICAL

PROCESSES AND LIFE HISTORY EVENTS OVER THE ENTIRE

SPECTRUM OF LIFE

NETWORKS!!!

Large vessels branch into smaller ones

Beating heart

Pulse wave propagates through elastic vessels

Relation between number and size of branches within a tree

Age  (day)  

Weight  (g)  

300  

240  

180  

120  

60  

0        0      60  120  180  240  300  360  

INCOMING METABOLISED ENERGY

MAINTENANCE (of existing cells)

+ GROWTH (of new cells)

€

B = NcellsBcell + EcelldNcell

dt

€

⇒dmdt

= am3 / 4 − bm

a ≡ B0mc

Ec

b ≡ Bc

Ec

where

IN TERMS OF MASS AT AGE t

NETWORK GEOMETRY AND DYNAMICS CONTROLS THE PACE OF LIFE AT ALL SCALES LEADING TO AN EMERGENT

“UNIVERSAL” TIME SCALE

THE PACE OF LIFE SYSTEMATICALLY SLOWS WITH INCREASING SIZE

€

Bcell ∝BM

= B0M−1/ 4

ALL RATES ~ M-1/4

METABOLISM GROWTH EVOLUTION LONGEVITY DIFFUSION FLUXES ……….

ALL TIMES ~ M1/4

LIFESPANS TURNOVER TIMES TIMES TO MATURITY CIRCULATION TIMES ………….

ALL RATES ~ M-1/4e-E/kT

METABOLISM GROWTH EVOLUTION LONGEVITY DIFFUSION FLUXES ……….

ALL TIMES ~ M1/4eE/kT

LIFESPANS TURNOVER TIMES TIMES TO MATURITY CIRCULATION TIMES ………….

TEMPERATURE REACTION RATES GOVERNED BY STATISCAL

PHYSICS (BOLTZMANN-ARRENHIUS)

MASS AND TEMPERATURE ARE THE MAJOR DETERMINANTS OF THE MEASURABLE TRAITS OF ORGANISMS

IF THE MASS AND TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCIES ARE ACCOUNTED FOR THIS IMPLIES A “UNIVERSAL” RATE OF LIVING, DYING, GROWING, REPRODUCING, EVOLVING,…….GOVERNED BY ONLY TWO PARAMETERS:

1/4 AND E ~ 0.7 ev

Rates of molecular evolution temperature dependence

Gillooly et al. 2005

Rates of molecular evolution body size dependence

Gillooly et al. 2005

SLEEP

Savage & West, PNAS 2007

BIOLOGY (LIFE)

a)  DOMINATED BY NON-LINEAR 1/4 - POWER SCALING

b) EXTRAORDINARY ECONOMIES OF SCALE (THE BIGGER YOU ARE, THE LESS YOU NEED PER “CAPITA”)

c) PACE OF LIFE SYSTEMATICALLY SLOWS WITH INCREASING SIZE;

d) GROWTH IS SIGMOIDAL REACHING A STABLE SIZE AT MATURITY

e) NETWORKS

OUR “NATURAL” METABOLIC RATE ~ 90 watts

OUR SOCIAL METABOLIC RATE ~ 11,000 watts !!!

WE ARE EQUIVALENT TO A 30,000 Kg GORILLA !!!

REPRODUCTION RATE OF ~ ONE OFFSPRING PER 15 years

Human ecology: reproductive rate in modern nations

•  Biological metabolic rate (B) is 100 watts •  Per capita rate of total energy use, including

fossil fuels, varies from 300 watts in developing nations to 11,000 watts in developed nations

•  Predicted fecundity rate (F) F ∝ M–1/4 and B ∝ M3/4, so F ∝ B–1/3

Reproductive rates of mammals, primates, and humans

Wild mammals

Wild primates

Modern human nations

Fecundity ∝ B–1/3

Moses and Brown 2002

Reproductive rates of U.S. females: Temporal change 1870-2000

per capita power consumption (watts)

Moses and Brown 2002

repr

oduc

tive

rate

(birt

hs p

er th

ousa

nd p

er y

ear)

ARE CITIES (AND COMPANIES) SCALED VERSIONS OF EACH

OTHER?

DO THEY MANIFEST “UNIVERSALITY”?

€

JAMES BROWN (UNM/SFI) BRIAN ENQUIST (U. ARIZONA) WOODY WOODRUFF (LANL) VAN SAVAGE (HARVARD)

JAMIE GILOOLLY (U. FLORIDA) DREW ALLEN (UCSB)

MICHELLE GIRVAN (U. MARYLAND) ALEX HERMAN (UCSF) CHRIS KEMPES (MIT)

LUIS BETTENCOURT (LOS ALAMOS/SFI - PHYSICS) JOSE LOBO (CORNELL/ASU - URBAN ECONOMICS) DEBORAH STRUMSKY (HARVARD/UNC - ECONOMICS) HYEJIN YOUN (SFI - PHYSICS) MARCUS HAMILTON (SFI/UNM - ANTHROPOLOGY) NATHANIEL RODRIGUEZ (SFI – COMPUTER SCIENCE)

DIRK HELBING (ETH ZURICH - TRANSPORT/PHYSICS) ERICH RAUCH (PHYSICS/BIOLOGY - MIT/PRINCETON)

DAVID LANE (U. REGGIO - STATISTICS/ECONOMICS) SANDER van der LEEUW (ASU - ANTHROPOLOGY) DENISE PUMAIN (PARIS - URBAN GEOGRAPHY) SPYROS SKOURAS (ECONOMICS - U. ATHENS)

PATRONS:

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

GENE & CLARE THAW CHARITABLE TRUST

BRYAN & JUNE ZWAN FOUNDATION

ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION

McDONNELL FOUNDATION