Why Size Matters - book review

I confess I picked up this book at the library because I thought the title was "Size Matters" which we all know is true in spite of protestations from some females. But "Why Size Matters" is almost as good even if the topic isn't what I thought it was.

Why Size Matters by John T. Bonner is a small book which, in this case, matters as it makes it even that much more enticing.

Despite the titillating title, the book is a serious piece about scalability in nature. Much as comic books or movies might want to lead to you to believe that you could find a race of humans 1/12 the size of us or another race 12 times as large. Bonner gives the rationale behind the restriction, namely that weight increases as the cube of height while strength and diffusion (which includes breathing and feeding) increases only as the square of height. Thus, one expects small creatures to have thin, spindly legs and bodies while large creature would have massive lungs and extremities.

Equally fascinating is the relationship between size and heart rate or metabolism or expected longevity. There are good scientific reasons why, in general, larger animals live longer, reproduce slower, and have slower heart rates and metabolism. An interesting and quick read although the latter chapters started sounding much more scholarly and boring than the first half of the book. Maybe the size of even a small book matters.