Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales

by John Tyler Bonner

Why size plays such a big role in the living world

John Tyler Bonner, one of our most distinguished and creative biologists, here offers a completely new perspective on the role of size in biology. In his hallmark friendly style, he explores the universal impact of being the right size. By examining stories ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Gulliver's Travels, he shows that humans have always been fascinated by things big and small. Why then does size always reside on the fringes of science and never on the center stage? Why do biologists and others ponder size only when studying something else--running speed, life span, or metabolism?

Why Size Matters , a pioneering book of big ideas in a compact size, gives size its due by presenting a profound yet lucid overview of what we know about its role in the living world. Bonner argues that size really does matter--that it is the supreme and universal determinant of what any organism can be and do. For example, because tiny creatures are subject primarily to forces of cohesion and larger beasts to gravity, a fly can easily walk up a wall, something we humans cannot even begin to imagine doing.

Bonner introduces us to size through the giants and dwarfs of human, animal, and plant history and then explores questions including the physics of size as it affects biology, the evolution of size over geological time, and the role of size in the function and longevity of living things.

As this elegantly written book shows, size affects life in its every aspect. It is a universal frame from which nothing escapes.

Genres: Biology, Science, Nonfiction, Animals, Nature

176 pages, Hardcover

First published September 13, 2006

About the author

John Tyler Bonner is the George M. Moffett Professor Emeritus of Biology at Princeton University, a pioneer in the use of cellular slime molds to understand evolution and development, and one of the world's leading experts on cellular slime molds.

Reviews

[Safura · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب جذابیه. اما ترجمه ایراداتی داره و کتاب سازی و صفحه‌بندی هم خیلی باکیفیت انجام نشده.

[Zak P · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up because I thought both the title and the name “Bonner” might mean it would provide some insights on why women keep telling me that “it’s okay because the big ones hurt” and that it’s the “motion of the ocean that really matters”, but it turns out it’s a book about biology.

Compact and straightforward, Bonner makes his points clear and accompanies them with graphs and illustrations that are interesting and comprehensible. I skipped over a lot of the equations because I don’t think memorizing them will benefit me in any way, but I do appreciate that they were included in case I might need them in the future.

My favorite part was learning that all organisms will experience about the same amount of heartbeats in their lifespan, regardless of their size.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very science jargon. I had a goal to finish this before Wednesday and look at me! Two days early!

[John Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating little book about the dictates of size. It posits five rules of size describing how (1) strength, (2) diffusion of oxygen, food, and heat, (3) division of labor, (4) life processes like metabolism, longevity, and speed of locomotion, and (5) abundance, vary in proportion to size. These factors, in turn, determine various physical characteristics of an living thing. For example, weight increases per the cube of the size, while strength increases per the square of the size - in other words, strength doesn't keep up to weight, so legs have to grow bigger proportionally in order to continue to support the animal, to the point that you have elephants and hippos. Likewise, small, lightweight animals aren't affected as much by gravity as larger animals, and hairy feet with a lot of surface area can find the nooks and crannies to hold onto - thereby enabling the fly and the gecko, for example, to cling to vertical and upside-down surfaces. (I had heard both of these in biology classes years ago, but never was given a clear, much less systematic or comprehensive, grasp of the principles behind it.) The author provides examples like this for each of the variables. The book is short, clear, and well-written. It's an easy and excellent read.

[Nola · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short instructive book that give a few rules for how size governs life processes and then explains each. It starts out with an overview of the sizes of organisms. This conveys his enthusiasm for living things and his fascination with their sizes. Why Size Matters contains lots of log log graphs. The whole book necessarily includes math beyond what you run into in most books. This will make you slow down and think as you read, so it’s good that it is short, concise, and written with verve and enthusiasm.

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really neat book that explores a lot of implications of size that are not immediately obvious. For example, how size relates to cell complexity, social complexity, generation length, vocalization in animals, reproduction methods, methods of locomotion. I appreciate that the author includes formulas and graphs to provide a mathematical context, and plenty of images to illustrate what these size differences really look like.

[Gunnar Wyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bonner has written an excellent little book. It is succinct while not leaving out information; academic without pretension; and entertaining while maintaining relevance. My only complaint is that it ended so soon. Get this book if you are at all curious about the physical principles that govern biological size.

[Alberto Tebaldi · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting book about the reasons organisms evolved into different sizes and the consequences of all that. interesting also the mathematical relation between size and different functions of living organism.

[Shreyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is among the classics books on scaling in biology. Preceded by D’Arcy Thompson's On growth and form and succeeded by Geoffrey West’s Scale. A nice book for introduction on size scaling and how it affects nearly everything about an organism. A must read.

[Lexie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction to the laws of physical form! I thought Bonner did a great job of describing mathematical concepts in easy-to-visualize ways. Also did a good job of balancing mathematical principles with biological relevance.

[Amritorupa Kanjilal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting topic, but the writing made it a chore to get through. It’s written in a style that’s part textbook, part academic paper, part facebook post. But I learnt quite a bit so two stars for that.

[Richard Meehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good short review of size related phenomenon that are not immediately intuitive.

[Adam Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why Size Matters by John Tyler Bonner. This novel is a great read. Because it really goes into depth of how and why size matters. I liked this book because of all of the pictures and graphs. I think that this book is great because it really explains things in a whole new way.
This book is about why size matters. This means that it talks about how tall or short certain animals are and then they compare them to other animals. I think that this is a great idea because of how throe about their drawings and graphs. I think that one way they could have made this book just a little bit better than it already is is by making it have all different kinds of animals in it. In some of the graphs in the book there are tons of different kinds of animals and how big or small they all are. I think that it was a good idea to make graphs because then you can compare them to other animals and their sizes.
I would recommend to anybody who likes science books. This book is all about charts, facts, and hard data. I think that this book is perfect for ages 10 and up. I think it should be put at 10 because to really get the whole book I think that you need to understand it. And I fell like you cant understand it unless you are 10 and up. I think that this book could go up to as old you are is because this book I feel like would never get old. I really love this book and would recommend this book to anybody who likes a good and strong read.

[Edward B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw this recommended somewhere and picked it up. But I thought it was a little weak.
It's quite readable, and fairly short, with a good number of supporting graphs (but surprisingly few footnotes), but it doesn't really say a lot, either, and even less that hasn't been said before, and much of what it does say seems like common sense (although that's unfair, really, because common sense, or at least common knowledge, can be wrong about many things, and Bonner's service here is in supplying supporting evidence and arguments, albeit not all of the arguments are fully convincing).

There were two linguistic things in here that irked me enough to remember them.
The more trivial one: in an incidental remark that had nothing to do with his argument, he referred to light-years as a measure of time, rather than distance.
The other was attempting to refute an idea that he saw presented in a talk, with the words "One cannot imagine that...". Weak! Obviously *one* could imagine: the guy giving the talk. The fact that *you*, Bonner, cannot imagine it says perhaps more about you than about the idea itself, and is certainly not remotely a valid refutation.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts off great, giving clear and concise guides to the relationship between size and shape of biological organisms. However, the in depth explanations on the five rules of size and shape are sometimes oversimplistic and fail to recognize exceptions. For example, elephants are included or omitted from graphs to make the correlations fit better. Dinosaurs are completely forgotten when the author claims that evolution is selecting towards an increase in size. Plants are completely neglected from most chapters, but as the title states, the book is predominantly geared towards animals. Finally, the references are a bit outdated, the book would have improved a lot if more recent literature was revised. However the book is interesting and presents very well some of the main misconceptions of size and shape. It is a very quick read (only about 100 pages) and I really enjoyed it.

[Trena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good but not great piece of science writing. It's an interesting concept: the way in which the size of an organism affects its structure. Bonner identifies five or six different principles that vary with size, expresses them as mathematical equations, and discusses the implications of the principles. The concept is interesting and I loved that the book is an odd square shape to go along with the theme. The author is a professor emeritus and this read like something written by a retired professor with time on his hands, sort of a piece of hobby writing with a whisper of vanity press. It's not long, but didn't hold my attention very well and it took me several weeks to finish.

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book written by a very smart biologist, and I'm not sure i understood everything he had to say, but I was really impressed with how welcoming the language was, even to someone who really has no background in biology. When i struggled with the concept (that size affects EVERY aspect of being, from structure to locomotion, reproduction, etc) the language was always there to comfort me. Some favorite phrases: "Size can exert supreme control over life" (page 132) and "The brain is permanently encased in a bone prison" (page 135). The writer may be a biologist now, but he is a poet on some level, too.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite never studying science, I do enjoy the occasional science book that is written for the masses. This one is an elegant analysis of how the size of a living creature affects its life in relation to factors such as strength, speed, quantity, food, labour and others. If you're curious about how the size of a bacterium affects its life in comparison to an elephant, then this is the book for you. The science is interspersed with some excellent examples (why can a fly walk on the ceiling?) and it was only rarely that I had to reread a section.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

some interesting bits, esp useful are the many graphs charting correlation of size with many attributes. overall disorganised and lacks coherent thread though. a very superficial treatment of a complex subject.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

a brief and interesting read.

[Mardel Fehrenbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick and interesting book to read.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and informative.

[Danny Ting · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book - Now I understand more why size, strength, metabolism and division of labors related to each other.