Join the Department of International Development for a guest lecture with Professor Geoffrey West on the scaling laws of life and the potential for systemic collapse in a rapidly evolving world.
Why do people and companies stop growing, age and then die, whereas cities keep growing with the pace of life continuing to accelerate? And how about the planet? Can the super-exponential growth of the anthroposphere be sustained or are we on the edge of some major transition? Is "the end of the world nigh”? And how is all of this related to the dynamics of innovation, wealth creation, social networks and urbanisation?
These are among the questions that will be explored in this lecture. Although life is the most complex and diverse phenomenon in the Universe, almost all its characteristics from cells to cities obey surprisingly simple, “universal” scaling laws which constrain much of the organisation and dynamics of biological, ecological and socio-economic life. These include metabolism, growth, development, lifespans, energy, patents, pollution, roads, crime and disease. These coarse-grained laws originate in the generic underlying mathematical properties of social, infrastructural, resource and information networks that sustain life across all scales. They lead to dramatic consequences for long-term growth, development and sustainability, including the emergence of impending singularities and tipping points.
Can the resulting open-ended super-exponential growth, fueled by innovation and wealth creation, be sustained or does it sow the seeds for eventual collapse?
About the speaker
Geoffrey West is Distinguished Professor and former President of the Santa Fe Institute, is a theoretical physicist who was previously at Stanford and Los Alamos. His work spans the physical, biological and social sciences ranging from quarks and cells to cities, and from growth and innovation to mortality. Author of the best-selling book Scale, he is best known for scaling, the metabolic theory of ecology and the science of cities. He has lectured widely, including TED and Davos, and was named to Time magazine's list of 100 in 2007.
About the Chair
Jean-Paul Faguet is Professor of Political Economy of Development in the LSE’s Department of International Development and chair of the Decentralization Task Force at Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue. His most recent book is Decentralized Governance: Crafting Effective Democracies Around the World (LSE, 2023).
More about this event
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