Scaling: Why Is Animal Size So Important?

This book is about importance of animal size. We tend to think of animal function in chemical terms and talk of water, salts, proteins, enzymes, oxygen, energy, and so on. We should not forget, however, that physical laws are equally important, for they determine rates of diffusion and heat transfer, transfer of force and momentum, the strength of structures, the dynamics of locomotion, and other aspects of the functioning of animal bodies. This book aims to give an understanding of these rules because of their implications when we deal with animals of widely different size and scale.

This short, non-mathematical discussion of how the physical size of an animal affects its physiological functions can be read profitably by both students and professional scientists. Elegantly written, the book illuminates those physical laws controlling rates of diffusion and heat transfer, transfer of force and momentum, the strength of structures, the dynamics of locomotion, and so on. It shows how these laws have profound implications for animals of widely different size and scale and why the size of living things is of such fundamental importance.