What do you think?
Rate this book
Size: How It Explains the World
From the New York Times bestselling author of How the World Really Works, a wide-ranging look at the most fundamental governing principle of our size , whose laws, limits, and peculiarities offer the key to understanding health, wealth, and even happiness “No one writes about the great issues of our time with more rigor or erudition than Vaclav Smil.” — Elizabeth Kolbert To answer the most important questions of our age, we must understand size. Neither bacteria nor empires are immune to its laws. Measuring it is challenging, especially where complex systems like economies are concerned, yet mastering it offers rich the rise of the West, for example, was a direct result of ever more accurate and standardized measurements. Using the interdisciplinary approach that has won him a wide readership, Smil draws upon history, earth science, psychology, art, and more to offer fresh insight into some of our biggest challenges, including income inequality, the spread of infectious disease, and the uneven impacts of climate change. Size explains the regularities—and peculiarities—of the key processes shaping life (from microbes to whales), the Earth (from asteroids to volcanic eruptions), technical advances (from architecture to transportation), and societies and economies (from cities to wages). This book about the big and the small, and the relationship between them, answers the big and small questions of human
The latest masterwork of “an ambitious and astonishing polymath who swings for fences” ( Wired) Size is a mind-bending journey that turns the modern world on its head.
The latest masterwork of “an ambitious and astonishing polymath who swings for fences” ( Wired) Size is a mind-bending journey that turns the modern world on its head.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published May 16, 2023
About the author
Vaclav Smil
61 books3,910 followersVaclav Smil Ph.D. (Geography, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of Pennsylvania State University, 1971; RNDr., Charles University, Prague, 1965), is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 2010 was named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
May 17, 2023
I just reviewed a terrific book by Vaclav Smil a couple of months ago, and now here is already another. Prodigious doesn’t begin to describe this author and academic. There are nearly 50 titles listed in the Also By. All of his books that I have reviewed have been fascinating. Until this one, Size. This one is a crazy quilt of trivia and topline findings on anything even remotely to do with sizes. And if size is not an issue, Smil finds a way to make it one. This is not the Vaclav Smil we have come to appreciate and love.
He wanders from the astronomical (the known universe so far is 93 billion light-years across and each light-year itself is about six trillion miles) to the submicroscopic atomic (a difference of 35 orders of magnitude from the universe), and settles in on mammals. There’s lots to examine in Man, including overall size, length of limbs, size of skull, height, BMI, heart functions, sight, and so on. It becomes a festival of little known facts, and the people who determined them.
In his usual thoroughly numbers-based way, he makes endless points about endless things. Of cars, he points out that SUVs produce 25% more emissions than sedans at a time when environmental consciousness would normally have focused on more efficiency, not less.
Size differences impress him. He loves comparing the smallest to the largest: the smallest engine, producing five watts, is the model airplane motor Tee-Dee. The largest is the Wartsila Marine Diesel, producing 84 megawatts. It’s a kind of randomized Guinness Book of Records for the first hundred pages.
But soon, Smil starts applying the concept of scale. By enlarging something, will it perform better, consume more, or even be feasible? Some things scale in a linear fashion; if you double the size, it will be doubly powerful, and/or consume double the fuel. Motors are like that. Some things are less than linear, and give back less than simply having two of them would. All very reasonable, but still left me wondering what the book was about.
In terms of profundity, Smil still says some very Smil-like things (thankfully): “Modern civilization will not be able to design its way out of its many predicaments.” Cities cannot simply get more and more crowded. Greater Tokyo, at 40 million people, is as populous as Canada, the second largest country in the world. That sort of thing.
It is interesting, but less so as it goes on. Screen sizes range from four cm (an Apple watch) to 150 meters (a Jumbotron). Or this: “More than a billion people (the global count of all road vehicles is now approaching 1.5 billion) are now individually commanding machines whose unit power is commonly an order of magnitude higher than the power of the largest mid-19th-century industrial waterwheel designs used in large flour mills and textile factories.” What to do with that data?
Everything is getting bigger, from cars to ships, from homes to office towers. People want bigger, including their own bodies. This leads to how to calculate your own BMI, and how obesity besets people in various societies.
He analyzes just how big things can possibly be. Steel lets us build taller buildings than wood does, for example. But traveling up the world’s tallest buildings is a commute itself. How much of that can we take? This leads to two chapters on of all things Gulliver’s Travels. Smil criticizes Swift for his math. Reading Swift without a calculator will let gullible readers believe what he says about tiny Lilliputians and gigantic Brobdinagians. They’re impossible, Smil says. He says the Lilliputians needn’t have worried about feeding the gigantic Gulliver, because food requirements aren’t linear with size. Lilliputians eat more per gram of body mass than Gulliver would.
He also shows that Lilliputians could not exist at all, because things like lungs and hearts can’t simply scale down and operate at the same efficiencies as man-size. Cell size would not change, for instance. A Lilliputian brain in such a tiny skull would not permit the bearer to act as a human. Brobdinagians would have to have bones like no other beings on earth to support their weight vertically. They would not be able to move, much less thrive at the heights Swift cites (65-70 feet tall). Their hearts would be impossible. Their brains, in skulls that gigantic, … well, you get the idea.
I just kept thinking, this is fiction, a fairytale. Why are you bothering to assassinate a 300 year old fairytale? Over two chapters of this slim book?
But then the book turned really sour for me. Smil decides to devote the last quarter of the book to the Statisticians Hall of Fame. He is all over his heroes from, France, Germany and his native Czechoslovakia who founded or developed major portions of Statistics. There is a segment on how to calculate a standard deviation that I could have lived without. There’s an ode to the beauty of normal distribution, how it got its name, and how many places it can be applied, mostly accurately. How largely predictable patterns in the natural world give comfort to statisticians. Inverse power law gets its own section, too. It actually became a hard slog, uniquely in my experience with the books of Vaclav Smil.
He lost my interest to the point of me thinking, how is he going to tie all this together? Because so far, it was life, the universe and everything. When I finally got to the Conclusions (yes, plural. He has FOUR of them: a thousand words, a hundred words, ten words and one word), my worst fears were realized: “Anybody expecting a grand synthesis culminating in a small number of conclusions imparting concentrated wisdom about size will be disappointed.”
Well to Smil’s credit, that was another prediction that came true.
David Wineberg
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
He wanders from the astronomical (the known universe so far is 93 billion light-years across and each light-year itself is about six trillion miles) to the submicroscopic atomic (a difference of 35 orders of magnitude from the universe), and settles in on mammals. There’s lots to examine in Man, including overall size, length of limbs, size of skull, height, BMI, heart functions, sight, and so on. It becomes a festival of little known facts, and the people who determined them.
In his usual thoroughly numbers-based way, he makes endless points about endless things. Of cars, he points out that SUVs produce 25% more emissions than sedans at a time when environmental consciousness would normally have focused on more efficiency, not less.
Size differences impress him. He loves comparing the smallest to the largest: the smallest engine, producing five watts, is the model airplane motor Tee-Dee. The largest is the Wartsila Marine Diesel, producing 84 megawatts. It’s a kind of randomized Guinness Book of Records for the first hundred pages.
But soon, Smil starts applying the concept of scale. By enlarging something, will it perform better, consume more, or even be feasible? Some things scale in a linear fashion; if you double the size, it will be doubly powerful, and/or consume double the fuel. Motors are like that. Some things are less than linear, and give back less than simply having two of them would. All very reasonable, but still left me wondering what the book was about.
In terms of profundity, Smil still says some very Smil-like things (thankfully): “Modern civilization will not be able to design its way out of its many predicaments.” Cities cannot simply get more and more crowded. Greater Tokyo, at 40 million people, is as populous as Canada, the second largest country in the world. That sort of thing.
It is interesting, but less so as it goes on. Screen sizes range from four cm (an Apple watch) to 150 meters (a Jumbotron). Or this: “More than a billion people (the global count of all road vehicles is now approaching 1.5 billion) are now individually commanding machines whose unit power is commonly an order of magnitude higher than the power of the largest mid-19th-century industrial waterwheel designs used in large flour mills and textile factories.” What to do with that data?
Everything is getting bigger, from cars to ships, from homes to office towers. People want bigger, including their own bodies. This leads to how to calculate your own BMI, and how obesity besets people in various societies.
He analyzes just how big things can possibly be. Steel lets us build taller buildings than wood does, for example. But traveling up the world’s tallest buildings is a commute itself. How much of that can we take? This leads to two chapters on of all things Gulliver’s Travels. Smil criticizes Swift for his math. Reading Swift without a calculator will let gullible readers believe what he says about tiny Lilliputians and gigantic Brobdinagians. They’re impossible, Smil says. He says the Lilliputians needn’t have worried about feeding the gigantic Gulliver, because food requirements aren’t linear with size. Lilliputians eat more per gram of body mass than Gulliver would.
He also shows that Lilliputians could not exist at all, because things like lungs and hearts can’t simply scale down and operate at the same efficiencies as man-size. Cell size would not change, for instance. A Lilliputian brain in such a tiny skull would not permit the bearer to act as a human. Brobdinagians would have to have bones like no other beings on earth to support their weight vertically. They would not be able to move, much less thrive at the heights Swift cites (65-70 feet tall). Their hearts would be impossible. Their brains, in skulls that gigantic, … well, you get the idea.
I just kept thinking, this is fiction, a fairytale. Why are you bothering to assassinate a 300 year old fairytale? Over two chapters of this slim book?
But then the book turned really sour for me. Smil decides to devote the last quarter of the book to the Statisticians Hall of Fame. He is all over his heroes from, France, Germany and his native Czechoslovakia who founded or developed major portions of Statistics. There is a segment on how to calculate a standard deviation that I could have lived without. There’s an ode to the beauty of normal distribution, how it got its name, and how many places it can be applied, mostly accurately. How largely predictable patterns in the natural world give comfort to statisticians. Inverse power law gets its own section, too. It actually became a hard slog, uniquely in my experience with the books of Vaclav Smil.
He lost my interest to the point of me thinking, how is he going to tie all this together? Because so far, it was life, the universe and everything. When I finally got to the Conclusions (yes, plural. He has FOUR of them: a thousand words, a hundred words, ten words and one word), my worst fears were realized: “Anybody expecting a grand synthesis culminating in a small number of conclusions imparting concentrated wisdom about size will be disappointed.”
Well to Smil’s credit, that was another prediction that came true.
David Wineberg
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
February 9, 2024
Další pokus s tímto autorem. Stejně jako minule, téma je neskutečně zajímavé, ale zpracování ubíjí čtenáře čísly. Opět jsem spíš vyčerpaná než poučená.
May 5, 2024
Some of the facts were fascinating. But I don't really understand the point of this book, nor did it explain the world.
April 18, 2023
What role does size play in determining the qualities of organisms and other complex systems? This book sets out to answer that question, exploring such diverse topics as art, income inequality, and climate change. There's a lot of interesting information in this easy-to-read book.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
January 14, 2024
I so rarely write bad reviews, but this book just doesn't work. "How size explains the world" is a very compelling premise, but the book just doesn't deliver on it at all. It's a random collection of facts regarding size and measurement that doesn't seem to draw any conclusions or come to any points. There needs to be certain insights drawn by these facts in each chapter in order for it to have any relevance to the reader. The book just doesn't do that.
The facts themselves weren't even interesting, nothing I would bring up as a point of interest in a conversation.
Many of the subjects covered did not reach a depth to give me the confidence that the author had done it justice. A discussion of Moore's law, for example, that doesn't discuss the impact quantum computing or artificial neural nets on processing speed.
Just disappointing. One of the very few books I've read lately that I wish I hadn't.
The facts themselves weren't even interesting, nothing I would bring up as a point of interest in a conversation.
Many of the subjects covered did not reach a depth to give me the confidence that the author had done it justice. A discussion of Moore's law, for example, that doesn't discuss the impact quantum computing or artificial neural nets on processing speed.
Just disappointing. One of the very few books I've read lately that I wish I hadn't.
August 2, 2023
Not my favorite of his books, but still an interesting read because SIZE DOES MATTER. No, get your head out of the gutter! When he tells you that CEOs are more likely to be the tallest people in the boardroom and that the Golden Mean isn’t, you are being informed about your biases in a useful way. Symmetry exists in Nature (interior forces, if you will), and we humans do respond positively to symmetry, but in the world of outside forces, geographic, cosmological and socio-economical, asymmetry rules. And China scores HIGH on the Gini scale of inequality- howdy, neighbor! (Of course, they’ve only been in the current economic game for 40 some years, and things may shake out for the better in time.)
I floundered a bit on some of the stats, but don’t worry, trust the author and keep reading. The last chapter is a delightfully wry takeaway of the book you just finished, but don’t skip forward to it and miss the details! You will be rewarded.
I floundered a bit on some of the stats, but don’t worry, trust the author and keep reading. The last chapter is a delightfully wry takeaway of the book you just finished, but don’t skip forward to it and miss the details! You will be rewarded.
August 24, 2023
This was a super disappointing book. I've read one of works of Smil and I loved it. So I was very excited when I got this book. I was throughly let down.
Smil just sputters on and on about size (including a giant aside about Gulliver's Travels I'm still struggling to understand). He doesn't actually make a point or a conclusion just shows how IMPORTANT size is, which feels... tautological.
It was not a great book, I almost didn't finish it. Don't bother.
Smil just sputters on and on about size (including a giant aside about Gulliver's Travels I'm still struggling to understand). He doesn't actually make a point or a conclusion just shows how IMPORTANT size is, which feels... tautological.
It was not a great book, I almost didn't finish it. Don't bother.
June 20, 2023
Entertaining, but not as informative as his last few books. He covers a lot of ground, but I walked away at the end wondering if I had learned anything. This book might be good in a course where there are discussions or lectures to tie all the information together, but reading or listening to it stand alone just didn’t do it for me.
October 21, 2023
I listened to the unabridged 9-hour audio version of this title (read by Stephen Perring, Harper Audio, 2023).
Vaclav Smil, professor of environmental studies at U. Manitoba, begins by observing that humans have always been fascinated by giant things. The seven wonders of the world were all humongous. When available material or construction methods impose a size limit, we work hard to overcome those limits in order to build taller skyscrapers, bigger airplanes, or larger dams. And our fascination with size isn't limited to human-made things. We are easily shocked and awed by the largest animals. At the other extreme, the tiniest things or beings also fascinate us.
Smil's book is related to another interesting book, Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies, by Geoffrey West (2017).
My review of Scale:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
There is a great deal of overlap between the two books. Size covers more ground, but is, by necessity, shallower, while, at double the size (pun intended), Scale digs much deeper into those aspects that it does cover.
Laws of scaling in nature are what limit the size of the largest animals and makes such animal heavier-built and less agile (compare an elephant with a gazelle). In many cases, size variations are distributed normally, with the distribution being nearly symmetric around the mean. A good example is the height of individuals, with separate distributions for men and women. In certain other cases, power-law distributions are applicable.
Size limitations and scaling laws also apply to human-made artifacts, such as buildings and jet engines. Smil covers the case of cities and companies in detail, showing that both have power-law scaling. There are very few gigantic metropolises or trillion-dollar companies, and many more provincial townships and small businesses. Other examples of power-law distributions are encountered in wealth of individuals, sales of books, and frequency of leading digits in numbers (Benford's Law). A straight-line plot on log-log scale is necessary, but insufficient, evidence for an underlying power-law.
Size is important in several different ways. It affects properties and behaviors. A large animal does not move or act in the same way as a small animal. We would readily admit to growth limits for biological systems, a recognition that has a very long history. That non-living systems also have growth limits comes as a surprise to many. An inordinately large city would be crushed under the burden of providing services and means of transportation. Even if we can build a super-tall skyscraper, it would be inefficient owing to the amount of floor space taken up by elevator shafts.
Given the importance of size, we have expended much effort on procedures and technologies for measuring it and on debating the relative merits of various characterizations and measurement methods. When one measures size (or anything else for that matter), one is drawn to consider norms and deviations from norms. This is readily accomplished in some cases, as in human height or body-mass index. With power-law distributions, however, well-defined mean and variance may not exist, making it difficult to characterize extreme cases.
Despite gaining much useful and interesting information from this book, I found it somewhat disappointing. Laws of scaling are not discussed as rigorously or completely as they could have.
Vaclav Smil, professor of environmental studies at U. Manitoba, begins by observing that humans have always been fascinated by giant things. The seven wonders of the world were all humongous. When available material or construction methods impose a size limit, we work hard to overcome those limits in order to build taller skyscrapers, bigger airplanes, or larger dams. And our fascination with size isn't limited to human-made things. We are easily shocked and awed by the largest animals. At the other extreme, the tiniest things or beings also fascinate us.
Smil's book is related to another interesting book, Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies, by Geoffrey West (2017).
My review of Scale:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
There is a great deal of overlap between the two books. Size covers more ground, but is, by necessity, shallower, while, at double the size (pun intended), Scale digs much deeper into those aspects that it does cover.
Laws of scaling in nature are what limit the size of the largest animals and makes such animal heavier-built and less agile (compare an elephant with a gazelle). In many cases, size variations are distributed normally, with the distribution being nearly symmetric around the mean. A good example is the height of individuals, with separate distributions for men and women. In certain other cases, power-law distributions are applicable.
Size limitations and scaling laws also apply to human-made artifacts, such as buildings and jet engines. Smil covers the case of cities and companies in detail, showing that both have power-law scaling. There are very few gigantic metropolises or trillion-dollar companies, and many more provincial townships and small businesses. Other examples of power-law distributions are encountered in wealth of individuals, sales of books, and frequency of leading digits in numbers (Benford's Law). A straight-line plot on log-log scale is necessary, but insufficient, evidence for an underlying power-law.
Size is important in several different ways. It affects properties and behaviors. A large animal does not move or act in the same way as a small animal. We would readily admit to growth limits for biological systems, a recognition that has a very long history. That non-living systems also have growth limits comes as a surprise to many. An inordinately large city would be crushed under the burden of providing services and means of transportation. Even if we can build a super-tall skyscraper, it would be inefficient owing to the amount of floor space taken up by elevator shafts.
Given the importance of size, we have expended much effort on procedures and technologies for measuring it and on debating the relative merits of various characterizations and measurement methods. When one measures size (or anything else for that matter), one is drawn to consider norms and deviations from norms. This is readily accomplished in some cases, as in human height or body-mass index. With power-law distributions, however, well-defined mean and variance may not exist, making it difficult to characterize extreme cases.
Despite gaining much useful and interesting information from this book, I found it somewhat disappointing. Laws of scaling are not discussed as rigorously or completely as they could have.
February 10, 2024
In "Size: How It Explains the World," author Vaclav Smil embarks on an intriguing journey to explore the significance of scale in various aspects of our lives. From the nanoscale to the global level, this book delves into the impact of size on biology, technology, society, and the environment. As an energy and environmental science expert, Smil brings his unique perspective to reveal the profound effects of scaling on our world.
The book begins with an introduction to the concept of scale and its importance in understanding various phenomena. Smil effectively illustrates how size influences everything from materials’ strength to transportation systems’ efficiency. He presents fascinating examples, such as the fact that spider silk’s strength-to-weight ratio is more significant than steel’s, highlighting the remarkable properties of natural materials.
One of the most compelling aspects of the book is its examination of the role of size in biology. Smil discusses the evolution of species, explaining how their size affects their survival, reproduction, and interactions within ecosystems. He also explores the implications of size in human health, demonstrating how body mass index (BMI) can mislead us in assessing health risks. These insights offer readers a fresh perspective on the interconnectedness of life and the importance of considering scale in scientific research.
Smil's discussion of technology is equally captivating as he investigates the limitations and potential of various inventions. He analyzes the constraints size imposes on engineering feats such as bridges, buildings, and aircraft and the challenges faced in miniaturizing electronic devices. His explanations of the physics behind these concepts are accessible and engaging, making them enjoyable for experts and non-experts alike.
The section on social and economic issues is particularly thought-provoking. Smil sheds light on topics like urbanization, population growth, and global trade, emphasizing the significance of scale in addressing these challenges. He argues that understanding the relationship between size and complexity is essential for effective decision-making in politics and business.
Throughout the book, Smil presents numerous graphs and diagrams to support his arguments. While they are generally helpful in illustrating key concepts, some may need to be more complex or dense for casual readers. However, this minor flaw does little to detract from the overall value of the text.
"Size: How It Explains the World" is a stimulating and informative read offering a new perspective on the world. Vaclav Smil's extensive knowledge and engaging writing style make this book appealing to a broad audience interested in science, technology, and sustainability. By examining the impact of scale on various domains, Smil encourages readers to think critically about the consequences of size in our daily lives and inspires us to consider innovative solutions to our challenges.
The book begins with an introduction to the concept of scale and its importance in understanding various phenomena. Smil effectively illustrates how size influences everything from materials’ strength to transportation systems’ efficiency. He presents fascinating examples, such as the fact that spider silk’s strength-to-weight ratio is more significant than steel’s, highlighting the remarkable properties of natural materials.
One of the most compelling aspects of the book is its examination of the role of size in biology. Smil discusses the evolution of species, explaining how their size affects their survival, reproduction, and interactions within ecosystems. He also explores the implications of size in human health, demonstrating how body mass index (BMI) can mislead us in assessing health risks. These insights offer readers a fresh perspective on the interconnectedness of life and the importance of considering scale in scientific research.
Smil's discussion of technology is equally captivating as he investigates the limitations and potential of various inventions. He analyzes the constraints size imposes on engineering feats such as bridges, buildings, and aircraft and the challenges faced in miniaturizing electronic devices. His explanations of the physics behind these concepts are accessible and engaging, making them enjoyable for experts and non-experts alike.
The section on social and economic issues is particularly thought-provoking. Smil sheds light on topics like urbanization, population growth, and global trade, emphasizing the significance of scale in addressing these challenges. He argues that understanding the relationship between size and complexity is essential for effective decision-making in politics and business.
Throughout the book, Smil presents numerous graphs and diagrams to support his arguments. While they are generally helpful in illustrating key concepts, some may need to be more complex or dense for casual readers. However, this minor flaw does little to detract from the overall value of the text.
"Size: How It Explains the World" is a stimulating and informative read offering a new perspective on the world. Vaclav Smil's extensive knowledge and engaging writing style make this book appealing to a broad audience interested in science, technology, and sustainability. By examining the impact of scale on various domains, Smil encourages readers to think critically about the consequences of size in our daily lives and inspires us to consider innovative solutions to our challenges.
July 29, 2023
Picking up a Smil book is always intimidating. His books are veritable encyclopedias - dense forests teeming with data and details. A book titled "Size" scared me more. Now, one was facing more than exhaustive research and voluminous content: there was an enormous, all-encompassing topic, too. Still, I was curious to see how Smil would weave together the vast tapestry of how size matters across different disciplines.
True to his reputation, Smil unleashes a flood of facts and measurements about size and scale in the natural and man-made worlds. Smil covers size extremes across physics, biology, engineering, and more, from tiny quarks to blue whales, bacteria to skyscrapers. The breadth leaves the reader gasping at the richness of information.
Given the sprawl of information, seeing the author developing compelling themes throughout the book is heartening. He develops compelling themes and threads, tying together the gargantuan and the minuscule, the living and the inanimate, into a coherent, captivating narrative, particularly in allometric and metabolic scaling topics. One learns about fundamental models like Kleiber's Law and the Square-Cube Law to explain growth patterns and limitations across size scales from cells to cities.
The book is at its best when it goes about dismantling our preconceived notions and debunking widely accepted principles. The Golden Ratio, apparently, does not exist anywhere. Even the laws we learn from the book turn out to be barely useable approximations, roiled often by the small, like Barro Colorado Island ants that break the Square-Cube Law, as much as by the large, like larger plants who do not have higher metabolic rates per unit mass compared to smaller plants. The author loves to reinforce how in nature, the devil is in the details - and in those wonderful, never-ending exceptions that make life so fascinatingly diverse and intricate, and his books full of surprises.
Later sections teach us about the modern implications of size - technologies, cities, and the author's favorite topic, energy use. He brings his engineering perspective to analyze trends and challenges related to humanity's increasing scale.
Despite the theme focus, there is no running away from the flood of information. The academic tone of the prose is not light. In the end, "Size" lives up to Smil's reputation with an exhaustive and enlightening look at a topic of importance. Persistent readers will be rewarded with insights into the principles of biology, engineering, and more.
True to his reputation, Smil unleashes a flood of facts and measurements about size and scale in the natural and man-made worlds. Smil covers size extremes across physics, biology, engineering, and more, from tiny quarks to blue whales, bacteria to skyscrapers. The breadth leaves the reader gasping at the richness of information.
Given the sprawl of information, seeing the author developing compelling themes throughout the book is heartening. He develops compelling themes and threads, tying together the gargantuan and the minuscule, the living and the inanimate, into a coherent, captivating narrative, particularly in allometric and metabolic scaling topics. One learns about fundamental models like Kleiber's Law and the Square-Cube Law to explain growth patterns and limitations across size scales from cells to cities.
The book is at its best when it goes about dismantling our preconceived notions and debunking widely accepted principles. The Golden Ratio, apparently, does not exist anywhere. Even the laws we learn from the book turn out to be barely useable approximations, roiled often by the small, like Barro Colorado Island ants that break the Square-Cube Law, as much as by the large, like larger plants who do not have higher metabolic rates per unit mass compared to smaller plants. The author loves to reinforce how in nature, the devil is in the details - and in those wonderful, never-ending exceptions that make life so fascinatingly diverse and intricate, and his books full of surprises.
Later sections teach us about the modern implications of size - technologies, cities, and the author's favorite topic, energy use. He brings his engineering perspective to analyze trends and challenges related to humanity's increasing scale.
Despite the theme focus, there is no running away from the flood of information. The academic tone of the prose is not light. In the end, "Size" lives up to Smil's reputation with an exhaustive and enlightening look at a topic of importance. Persistent readers will be rewarded with insights into the principles of biology, engineering, and more.
April 10, 2024
"Size: How it Explains the World" by Vaclav Smil is an interesting book that explores the idea of size, our perceptions, sizes in our illusion and reality, its impact on almost everything around us, etc. From tiny cells to massive economies, size plays a crucial role in shaping our world.
The author many real-life examples to help understand different concepts, from simple ones to complex ones. For example: what is the Golden Ratio? Is it real? Can a very small or large organism experience the world in the same way? Why do big animals need more food? How the size of cities affects our daily lives etc...
What make this book enjoyable: • It's not just about science but its relevance to everyday life - how size influences every aspect of our lives, from how we live and work to how we interact with each other and the environment. • Next, it opposes popular inadequate views about size standards and explains them objectively. • Next, it shows many should-be standards of size in an agreeable way about designs that serve people. • Next, the structural and logical layout and presentation, I like (and learn from) how he opens one concept, gives examples, conclude it and naturally opens the next new one. • Next, only about size but "one million" topics about it, it touches the sizes of literally everything.
What make it not-so-enjoyable: • It has many complex concepts and not all of them are familiar and easy-to-understand. (For example: Economy science, scaling, metabolic rates, etc...). However, after finishing, despite of complexity, some are grasped (some are not). • Next, the writing style of the author is very academic and it contains technical language, which is hard to understand. Well, if it were translated to Vietnamese, may be it will be a little easier for me but I doubt it still. • Next, data analysis and math formulas are the problems for me. 😅
The author many real-life examples to help understand different concepts, from simple ones to complex ones. For example: what is the Golden Ratio? Is it real? Can a very small or large organism experience the world in the same way? Why do big animals need more food? How the size of cities affects our daily lives etc...
What make this book enjoyable: • It's not just about science but its relevance to everyday life - how size influences every aspect of our lives, from how we live and work to how we interact with each other and the environment. • Next, it opposes popular inadequate views about size standards and explains them objectively. • Next, it shows many should-be standards of size in an agreeable way about designs that serve people. • Next, the structural and logical layout and presentation, I like (and learn from) how he opens one concept, gives examples, conclude it and naturally opens the next new one. • Next, only about size but "one million" topics about it, it touches the sizes of literally everything.
What make it not-so-enjoyable: • It has many complex concepts and not all of them are familiar and easy-to-understand. (For example: Economy science, scaling, metabolic rates, etc...). However, after finishing, despite of complexity, some are grasped (some are not). • Next, the writing style of the author is very academic and it contains technical language, which is hard to understand. Well, if it were translated to Vietnamese, may be it will be a little easier for me but I doubt it still. • Next, data analysis and math formulas are the problems for me. 😅
August 6, 2023
Perhaps because I came in with high expectations, I found this book trite.
Also, it’s misnamed: after a chapter or two about size this becomes a book about scale and scaling.
In short, Size is an anthology of observations and rules of thumb regarding scale by an author who comes off like erudite, balanced, well-read and (modulo the odd comment about taste) measured.
The problem is that while the book is balanced, wide-ranging and measured, it fails to present a single new idea and it never goes into any depth. It’s like this omniscient thinker decided to share with us a taxonomy of his thoughts.
In short, I’m done reading the whole thing and, hand on my heart, I was not challenged. I did not find anything to disagree with, nothing to get my pulse going. I’m sure I picked up a nugget of knowledge here and there, of course.
Here’s the thing: I got to like the author.
Just in case you’re different from me, here’s the author’s own 100-word summary of Size:
Size is a fundamental physical attribute. Our size judgements are constant; size expectations and illusions abound; measurements should decide; body height confers advantage. Preferred proportions enhance size appeal and symmetry is generally in high regard. Modernity has seen an overall tendency toward larger sizes. Ergonomic size designs should be everywhere. Allometric scaling of size, including body organs, has a limited range but is complex. Metabolic size scaling of organisms has no single exponent. Intraspecific sizes of organisms and their parts have normal distributions, clustering around means. But there are plenty of asymmetrically distributed sizes in both nature and society.
Also, it’s misnamed: after a chapter or two about size this becomes a book about scale and scaling.
In short, Size is an anthology of observations and rules of thumb regarding scale by an author who comes off like erudite, balanced, well-read and (modulo the odd comment about taste) measured.
The problem is that while the book is balanced, wide-ranging and measured, it fails to present a single new idea and it never goes into any depth. It’s like this omniscient thinker decided to share with us a taxonomy of his thoughts.
In short, I’m done reading the whole thing and, hand on my heart, I was not challenged. I did not find anything to disagree with, nothing to get my pulse going. I’m sure I picked up a nugget of knowledge here and there, of course.
Here’s the thing: I got to like the author.
Just in case you’re different from me, here’s the author’s own 100-word summary of Size:
Size is a fundamental physical attribute. Our size judgements are constant; size expectations and illusions abound; measurements should decide; body height confers advantage. Preferred proportions enhance size appeal and symmetry is generally in high regard. Modernity has seen an overall tendency toward larger sizes. Ergonomic size designs should be everywhere. Allometric scaling of size, including body organs, has a limited range but is complex. Metabolic size scaling of organisms has no single exponent. Intraspecific sizes of organisms and their parts have normal distributions, clustering around means. But there are plenty of asymmetrically distributed sizes in both nature and society.
July 17, 2023
Another thought-provoking book from Vaclav Smil, this time tackling the gargantuan principles of size and how it pertains to our everyday life. If you've read any of Smil's previous work, you would immediately notice how intricate and dense the readings tend to be. Size: How It Explains the World is no exception, with a plethora of formulas and statistics to keep track of. Vast topics are covered, ranging from scaling and how it works to symmetrical & asymmetrical distributions.
I particularly enjoyed chapters where Smil deep-dived on scaling and how it may not be as intuitive as everyone may think. Ratios and equations relating to energy conversion based on the mass of a person or object, opened up a new perspective to me on why some things are the size that they are.
The criticism over the accuracy of a near 300 year old fiction book (Gulliver's Travels) and the long chapters devoted to famous statisticians, felt a bit unnecessary and prolonged at times. While I believe there to be better works from Smil, this book is still a good read for anyone curious about size.
I particularly enjoyed chapters where Smil deep-dived on scaling and how it may not be as intuitive as everyone may think. Ratios and equations relating to energy conversion based on the mass of a person or object, opened up a new perspective to me on why some things are the size that they are.
The criticism over the accuracy of a near 300 year old fiction book (Gulliver's Travels) and the long chapters devoted to famous statisticians, felt a bit unnecessary and prolonged at times. While I believe there to be better works from Smil, this book is still a good read for anyone curious about size.
May 24, 2023
Là một fan của Vaclav Smil nhưng cuốn Size: How It Explains the World mới ra của ông thực sự tệ hại. Háo hức bao nhiêu, thất vọng bấy nhiêu, cuốn sách như một mớ hỗn độn, đúng như tên gọi của nó, sách bàn về kích thước, từ kích thước của con người (chân ngắn có nguy cơ mắc bệnh cao hơn :v) cho đến kích thước các công trình, tỉ lệ vàng - tác giả bàn về tỉ lệ vàng thực sự không phổ biến trong tự nhiên như chúng ta vẫn nghĩ, có chăng chỉ là ảo giác do những tuyên truyền gây nên, một nghiên cứu đo tỉ lệ khuôn mặt của các hoa hậu cho thấy họ không có gương mặt vàng :)) đến phân phối chuẩn, tại sao chúng ta thường quan tâm đến hai cực của biểu đồ... Quả thật xuyên suốt cuốn sách đều là kích thước nhưng cái chính là tác giả đã làm quá lên mọi thứ và cố biến nó thành các vấn đề để thảo luận :)) đọc đến chương 3 chán chẳng buồn nói, mấy chương sau mình chỉ đọc lướt nhưng cũng chẳng biết nói thêm gì. Cuốn Energy and Civilization của ông tuyệt phẩm bao nhiêu thì cuốn này lại tầm xàm bấy nhiêu, có lẽ do danh tiếng của tác giả quá tốt nên sách vẫn đang trong top Amazon dù mới ra ngày 16/05 vừa rồi.
January 21, 2024
I picked up this book last May, and it took nearly 9 months for me to finally start reading it. I wish I hadn't waited so long, as it is the best single source of insight focused on the idea of size that I've ever come across. My favorite concepts, well covered by Vaclav Smil in his research: 1. The handy measure of an "order of magnitude", to help us better the difference between something that is "small" (say, the width of an hydrogen atom) from something that is "large" (say, the breadth of the known universe. 2. Jaromir Korcak's research helping us understand where we can expect to find symmetric vs. asymmetric distributions in nature (living organisms vs. our physical world respectively). Equally interesting was to learn why it is so hard for us adequately prepare for the NEXT major world event, whether that be a hurricane, earthquake or pandemic.
September 27, 2023
Meten om te weten ? Mediaanlijn, gemiddeld, opschalen, maar hoe meet men onvoorspelbaarheid?
Hoe gaat materie reageren na verloop van tijd , onder welke omstandigheden hitte, vocht enz . ?
Hoe gaan organismen reageren? Bij Bv kleine ramp of bij grote ramp , bij klein geluk of bij groot geluk, een boek zonder verhaal , maar met interessante weetjes over vanalles en nog wat wat te maken geeft met meten , opschalen, de eventuele problemen daarbij en de onvoorspelbaarheid van (tijd in ) curven , ik vond het boek 4 sterren het was interessant hoewel ik waarschijnlijk wel een hoop weetjes terug zal vergeten ,
4 sterren , 5 gegeven om het gemiddelde naar 4 te krijgen ,
Hoe gaat materie reageren na verloop van tijd , onder welke omstandigheden hitte, vocht enz . ?
Hoe gaan organismen reageren? Bij Bv kleine ramp of bij grote ramp , bij klein geluk of bij groot geluk, een boek zonder verhaal , maar met interessante weetjes over vanalles en nog wat wat te maken geeft met meten , opschalen, de eventuele problemen daarbij en de onvoorspelbaarheid van (tijd in ) curven , ik vond het boek 4 sterren het was interessant hoewel ik waarschijnlijk wel een hoop weetjes terug zal vergeten ,
4 sterren , 5 gegeven om het gemiddelde naar 4 te krijgen ,
March 5, 2024
Overall this book was interesting, but my focus was getting into body proportions and how size governs proportions of growth, which I found is called "allometry" or "allometrics" so from that standpoint I got out of this book exactly what I wanted, but still give it 3 stars as it was a good intro, but seemed lacking in some of the discussion. Never got into the specific why's of how an elephants bones need to be proportionally bigger, I think the math here would help tell the story. oops, one sentence
November 19, 2023
I really enjoyed Smil’s previous books including How the World Really Works and Numbers Don’t Lie so bought this without reading reviews. A little disappointed as it’s very uneven and more a collection of short topics without much to hold it together.
The last chapter on statistical distributions was a good overview and the section on height and its correlation to measures of success abs health was interesting.
The last chapter on statistical distributions was a good overview and the section on height and its correlation to measures of success abs health was interesting.
December 25, 2023
77%
This book is super quirky, I love how size does not work proportionally, even though in general we would think it would a lot of times accounting for other factors, but then we do the math and it still doesn't add up and it's like what are we missing?
Super fun, one day we're probably going to have quantum computers and they're going to be microsized and it's like what the fuck is this primitive shit?
This book is super quirky, I love how size does not work proportionally, even though in general we would think it would a lot of times accounting for other factors, but then we do the math and it still doesn't add up and it's like what are we missing?
Super fun, one day we're probably going to have quantum computers and they're going to be microsized and it's like what the fuck is this primitive shit?
February 12, 2024
Not for me
Thought this sounded very interesting but alas I don't have a degree in statistics. Started off easy to read, however about halfway through it was mostly gibberish. That's not the author's fault it was my failure to realise the book was more about statistical averages and how they came about than why size matters. If you are of a scientific or mathematical bent then enjoy, it just wasn't for me.
Thought this sounded very interesting but alas I don't have a degree in statistics. Started off easy to read, however about halfway through it was mostly gibberish. That's not the author's fault it was my failure to realise the book was more about statistical averages and how they came about than why size matters. If you are of a scientific or mathematical bent then enjoy, it just wasn't for me.
July 30, 2023
Having moderate amount of new information and facts reduced to numbers Smil style,this book becomes a bit boring at times when it excessively dwells on a particular matter. The third chapter is strange and wierd, and doesn't seems like you are reading Smil. The often repeated analogy with Gulliver-lilliputians is a bit absurd.
Yet new facts and comparisons put forth makes it a must read for any of Smil's admirers. Comparing with the 2 brilliant yet accessible books which precede this one, it does falls short on some parameters.
Yet new facts and comparisons put forth makes it a must read for any of Smil's admirers. Comparing with the 2 brilliant yet accessible books which precede this one, it does falls short on some parameters.
September 11, 2023
Vaclav Smil is a brilliant mind and I enjoy all of his books. This one was a bit lackluster for me. I enjoyed the first few chapters and the conclusion but the sections on metabolic scaling and beyond were dry. I also don’t think I learned anything wildly new from this book, which is a first for his writing.
Currently reading
October 3, 2023The known universe, as of today, is "measured" to be 93 billion light years across. At a microscopic level, a scanning tunneling microscope (most widely used electron microscopy techniques include scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM)) is able to have resolution down to 20 picometers (0.02 nanometers).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 2, 2023
By far the most accessible of Smil's books that I've read. That might be why I thought it was his worst.
I enjoy his work very much. Most of his books teach me things I didn't know before.
There are a few interesting numerical facts in this one, but the lessons on scale, probability distributions and so on were familiar.
I enjoy his work very much. Most of his books teach me things I didn't know before.
There are a few interesting numerical facts in this one, but the lessons on scale, probability distributions and so on were familiar.
March 5, 2024
The main idea of the book is vague, and that's why a reader might get lost at the beginning. Although this book details so many general knowledge information, it hardly connects it to the book's theme. With the exception of two chapters in the book that were absolutely brilliant. Writing style is good and easy to follow.
April 21, 2024
Didn't finish it. I had been meaning to read something by Vaclav Smil and the library had this one; Goodreads reviews suggest it's maybe not one of his better ones, so maybe I'll give a different one a try. This felt like a lot of size-related factoids strung together without any overarching point. Interesting bits, but I couldn't stay interested.
August 4, 2023
Found the book to be missing a point - not sure what the purpose of the book was. Found the last chapter on normal distribution and asymmetric distribution fascinating, but the rest of the book was a bit soft for my liking.
June 4, 2023
I enjoy his writing, but this was not, in my view, his best work.
June 20, 2023
Underwhelming, especially after some other great books. The last third was an introduction to statistics and distributions, mixed with some historical perspectives of stats.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews