The Laws of Nature
The driving force behind the derivation of models for complex systems has long been the desire to create reliable predictions. As progress in this regard is made, one can see a fascinating commonplace among the results: entirely different processes follow similar growth (or decay) models. Such is the topic of the NY Times article “Review: How Laws of Physics Govern Growth in Business and in Cities,” which covers theoretical physicist Geoffrey West’s recent book “Scale.” The text serves to substantiate the claim that the basic, universal laws governing physics apply to all types of fluid, constantly-evolving systems. Furthermore, West’s fundamental model rests upon three simple points: the network is available to all units in question (e.g., cells, people, etc); each unit is similar to the others; and natural selection occurs as to “optimize” the population. West does note, however, that the latter requirement is hard to meet as one shifts focus to the “corporate” realm; regardless, the author shows evidence of the phenomenon occurring in biological, urban, and other settings.
The article’s––and, by extension, book’s––correlation to the overall study of networks occurs in both a specific and general sense. The former case ties into the recent discussion of power laws. The textbook notes that the rich-get-richer dynamic of page growth is the same rule that “governs the growth of bacterial colonies and compound interest” (548). Therefore, the fact that West independently found evidence of natural processes reliant on the same mathematical principles bolsters the claim that the model developed in class is feasible and effective. More generally, the framework in which West observed these results also correlates to the notion of the Internet as a whole, and too serves to further substantiate the textbook’s claim. Connection to an infinite amount of users without restriction is available to all web pages (with the exceptions of firewalls that prevent access to the outside world as imposed by some countries); each web page, abstractly, is the same as the others; and certain web pages perform better than others which causes the winners to remain up and the losers to be taken down: in essence, the discussion of web pages in the textbook fits the requirements for West’s model, so the fact that the textbook’s model is also seen in nature corresponds with West’s suggestion that the laws governing nature can be used to model most systems in general. This serves to supplement the already seen data proving the effectiveness of using power laws.