Geoffrey West - Why Do Power Laws Work So Widely?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 มี.ค. 2021
- Power laws relate diverse quantities in a defined numerical way, such that a change in one is associated with a change in the other according to specific formulas or equations, often expressed by the exponent. Why do power laws, or scaling laws, work over large orders of magnitudes and among radically diverse fields in the physical, biological and social sciences? How do power laws relate to general systems theory?
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Geoffrey West is a British theoretical physicist, former president and distinguished professor of the Santa Fe Institute.
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An example of someone who can explain science with a simple language. Maybe because he has for a long time tried to find simplicity behind complex and scattered facts, and he has succeeded. Looks a modest man too. Well done!
This is awesome, one of my favorite videos is the Ziph Mystery on Vsauce, they touch on power laws and give lots of examples. This guy is beast!
Good episode.
I learned something new.
Fantastic findings.
Love you sir.
Thanks so much
Thanks for your deep understanding of the nature’s
Many Kudos
Excellent...... thanks 🙏.
Read his book, Scale. Very interesting and somewhat novel take.
It's right though. Whether we acknowledge or not. Complex systems must adapt in every part of thr universe. To ignore exponential growth is to just write us off to inevitably failing and being killed off. Just look at the epochs of history. Technological advancement has sped up to a rate order of magnitudes faster then the bronze age. This is clear exponential growth.
Geoffrey is brilliant! I’m so glad you create these 10 minute snippets of your interviews. I think the 21st century will be a century of transition. Rather than biology supplanting mathematics or physics, I think the physical sciences will hold their own, partly through the development of AI and the integration of AI into our biology. We will likely move toward longer lives as we find ways to maintain and optimize our biology through a synergy of biological enhancement, AI monitors and device interventions, and increased safety (self-driving cars, safer chemistry in our environment, etc).
Fascinating
The problem is that we lack the math to do what Geoffrey suggests. Biology is not real science except in the most trivial way for the most trivial of reactions. How do you hold variables constant? How do you evaluate causality in complex systems in which the importance of different factors is always changing? His greatest contribution is exposing why the arrogance in most of the health and social sciences holds back many of those fields.
The 75% correlation of food consumption vs. living mass is easily explained: as all living things have mass density roughly equivalent to water, the more fundamental relation is regular energy consumption vs. fixed volume, which goes as some characteristic length L^3, or 3 times the mysterious factor of 1/4 he's observed (i.e. 75%). So the question becomes, where does this mysterious 1/4 factor come from to begin with. Also easy: our base 10 system of numbers is quite arbitrary, as e is the natural base, and 10/e ≈ 4.
Thus, if all data were converted to the natural base, all the power-law factors of 0.25 he's observed would instead be of 1, i.e. only integer exponents have physical significant. This BTW is why Stephen Wolfram’s computational theory of everything will prove fruitless: fractional dimensions aren’t a thing.
@@emmettedavidson7055 That was interesting!
@@jareknowak8712 Indeed it is. I'm unfamiliar with West's work, but would be surprised if it's not been postulated before, by him or others. It seems rather self-apparent from his stated observations, and is after-all at the foundation of physics' objective reality.
@@emmettedavidson7055
It HAS been stated separately by different fields. For instance, i have seen it pop up in Biology in different places. Veratasium released a video in regards to the evolution of e. coli under selective pressure by antibiotics in which power laws came up.
What West is doing is combining separate topics that overlap and trying to tie them together into a unifying theme.
Was it Aristotle that is credited for noticing how city roads are like veins and arteries between cities? If you look at how bacteria replicate and grow colonies, over time, they tend to look like cities that all connect to each other. Neurons connecting to each other throughout the brain and body do similar things. There are laws that govern such formations, and i really fascinated by such grand topics. West's work is interesting, and I hope it holds up to time, because he could be on to something.
As a side-note: I think his book, "Scale" is for the general lay audience, because, like you said, some of this is evident to those that study similar topics.
Niall Ferguson’s “Doom” led me here. Great book that relies heavily on power laws to explain the distribution of disasters.
He looks a little bit like Patrick Stewart with hair.
The hair comes from his Ian Mckellen side
Power laws are not just useful in characterising complex Biological systems.
In Engineering power Laws relationships are also very common. Fluid flow behaviour for example. In fact there is a class of fluids groups under the heading Power Law Fluids.
The coefficients and exponents are empirically determined through experiment, and are rarely nice round integers
Now imagine a field in which the fluids are made up of parts that have free will and you realize why the social sciences are not science.
@@VangelVe You may need to Apologise for that comment MR Veracoseski
@@PetraKann Why would I need to apologize? We know that when we try to reach sound conclusions we need to hold variables constant and be able to control conditions stable while having good measurement systems in place. The social sciences fail on that front.
@@VangelVe Whether you apologise or not is totally up to you as a person.
Doing the right thing and apologising would be liberating and allow to grow personally and move forward.
@@PetraKann Apologize for what?
Aspect is Actuality in Accordance with Reality in Action. Explains the Way, in Which, the What is Why. Aspects are active or automatic Conceptual conduct, or conduction. Aspects are specific affects of Relation of Being and Reason. Affect is an automatic action thus are classified as Accordance. Aspects are the foundational and fundamental forces in Law. Fussion and Fision, the flux forms of Fact, but in Fact it flows faultless. This all makes Phenomenon or Presence.
“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” Max Plank (the Father of Quantum Physics) ... It is curious how Max Plank's conclusions were so revolutionary in the field of science / physics (i.e. the immaterial (non-material) reality of nature and "the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind" as the ultimate force behind the fabric of reality). Yet, when microbiologists. biologists, geneticists, biochemists, other scientists, etc. come to the same conclusion, based on empirical data (i.e. Intelligence/consciousness/mind is an integral and fundamental force behind the initial introduction and subsequent propagation of biological systems), they are rebuffed as being "unscientific".
he looks like Harrison Ford if he never did star wars
Such an entanglement in the complexities of illusion.
what did i think about before this channel?
And you can apply power laws to Bitcoin! Crazy
I would have called that a coincidence but I guess its also called a law
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting". Ernest Rutherford
Now here is what is amazing, mathematics are dead on the money very accate in their calculations
Do what? I'm lost here lol.
Power law is a mathematical law with some power or exponent, like e^x or 2^y, that describes some phenomena. He’s asking about why they apply to so many diverse things
2/1/24
Bitcoin brought me here. ✌🏻
Me too. The deeper I get into bitcoin the more I realize it works
I am going to have my teeth scaled.
The.more you crave and lust for power the.more you will be disillusioned and no real power*+++*+++***
Bitcoin
bitcoin
Boring!
Follow Jesus Christ
For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life
I don't understand why anyone would find eternal life attractive.
@@dkenmiller9829 Read the Bible and you'll understand.
@@jayrodriguez84 A glib but useless response. Billions of people on this planet are not Christians and do not regard the Christian bible to be authoritative. I include myself among them.
@@dkenmiller9829 Here's what the Bible says about the ratio of those who will go to heaven and those who will go to hell.
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Matthew 7:13-14 NKJV
So I would agree with your billions of people statement if by billions you mean the majority of the nearly 8 billion people who live on earth. The Bible is quite accurate wouldn't you say?
Its sad most people will reject the free gift of eternal salvation and be sentenced to eternal hell for all the lying they did(think of how many lies you've told, that number might match the number of galaxies in the observable universe) I probably have the same number if not more. The difference is I'm remorseful for all the sin I've committed. You're prideful thinking you don't need forgiveness from the Lord Almighty. My soul will be spared, yours sentenced... unless you go and think about all those lies you told and realize how deceitful you've been in your life. All those times you've lusted or coveted something. It's all being recorded. So its better to bow now rather than later when its too late for you.
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 corrinathian 1 18.
@@jayrodriguez84 I would love to know your real name.
The speculation are not true why it support his ideia not link real events. When he does not proove. Busseness vídeo creat to make money abuse serious science
@@quentinkumba6746 my opinion is true despiste my english sir
@@quentinkumba6746 you need good manners before critises my english if You understand me my english is good sir. Bussiness video not true events in phisics
@@quentinkumba6746 ok man closer the true videos comercial no science no scientif serious speculations. It is make money created by ex former banker. Video ridiculos bizarre bosbastic
@@quentinkumba6746 Now whose being rude? You should check your facts before accusing some one of anti semitism, Kuhn is, or was, an investment banker.
@@quentinkumba6746 Sorry mate, no wriggling out of it. I agree with you that the poster is wrong about Mr. Kuhn's motives but he thinks Mr. K is making the videos as a purely commercial exercise, and misrepresenting science, and his history as a banker is relevant to that wrong-headed view.
People are too quick to throw nasty accusations around and that is one reason why the internet is such a huge disappointment for those of us old enough to remember the hype and the hope when it was first made available to the public.
A terrible speaker .. so difficult to listen to.
He's an old man.. I think he's doing pretty well