Geoffrey West: Scaling Laws in Nature

Alejandro Litovsky

June 11, 2010

TIME Magazine has called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist, formerly President of the Santa Fe Institute–the leading institution advancing the science of complexity, where he is now a Distinguished Professor.

His long-term fascination with general scaling phenomena led him to formulate universal scaling laws in biology, from scaling at a molecular genomic level through to cells and mitochondria, to whole organisms and ecosystems. He is now using these insights to understand how scaling happens in social organisations, from corporations to cities.

How is this relevant to social change and to social investors? I asked him in an interview for the June 2010 issue of the Alliance Magazine.

Download the interview with Geoffrey West.