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Design in nature, thermodynamics, and the constructal law: Comment on “Life, hierarchy, and the thermodynamic machinery of planet Earth” by A. Kleidon

✍ Scribed by Adrian Bejan

Publisher
Elsevier Science
Year
2010
Tongue
English
Weight
356 KB
Volume
7
Category
Article
ISSN
1571-0645

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✦ Synopsis

a) A growing body of knowledge shows that "design" (configurations, rhythms, scaling rules) is present in all flow systems in nature. (b) Design phenomena are not covered by the old laws of physics.

The empirical (a) has far outpaced the theoretical (b). From the clash between (a) and (b) results the better science of design in nature. Earlier attempts to address (b) consisted of contradictory statements of optimality (max, min) that, at best, have ad-hoc (limited) applicability:

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