Size: How It Explains the World

In this meandering investigation, Smil (Grand Transitions), a geography professor at the University of Manitoba, Canada, meditates on size and its relation to status, intelligence, wealth, and beauty. Offering up loosely connected musings on the role that growth, scale, proportion, and other size-related concepts play in nature and human affairs, Smil contends that human efforts to make ever larger objects, “from TV screens to skyscrapers,” are the result of industrialization and its emphasis on developing increasingly efficient means of harvesting energy. He suggests that body size has complex consequences; studies show that taller children have higher test scores and that taller adults make more money than their shorter counterparts. Smil considers limitations on scaling up and observes that while larger wind turbines generate more power, rotor weight increases exponentially with blade length, restricting how big turbines can get. Debunking common myths, Smil notes that while some mathematicians claim the proportions of the golden ratio are “esthetically superior,” studies have failed to prove a correlation between how pleasing subjects find a painting or face and how closely it adheres to the ratio. There’s plenty of stimulating trivia, but the lack of an overarching framework to give meaning to the disparate facts leaves this feeling inconclusive. This intermittently fascinates, even as it struggles to find the point. Photos. (May)