|
Geoffrey West
President and Distinguished Professor, Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, USA.
As an undergraduate, Geoffrey West studied mathematics and physics in
the 1960's, at Cambridge University in England. He progressed to Ph.D
studies in theoretical physics at Stanford University in California and
remained based in the U.S. thereafter. He eventually joined the
Stanford physics department faculty and later led the particle theory
group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Though he began his academic
career and subsequently made his name in the realm of hard-core
theoretical particle physics, a long nurtured interest in biology and
an unwillingness to acknowledge the operational boundaries between the
two domains led him to explore the potential for applying quantitative
methods to biological problems such as aging.
In the mid-1990s, after a
serendipitous encounter with ecologist Jim Brown, the main focus of his
interest shifted from particle to biological physics. He began in
earnest to study the most complex of all systems: life. Since then, he
has made major contributions at the confluence of biology and physics,
including seminal work with Brown on biological scaling. The quarter
power scaling laws connect a diversity of biological phenomena whose
links are not immediately obvious to a non-mathematician. For instance,
they relate an organism's size to its metabolic rate and its natural
lifespan. West and his collaborators are credited with providing a
rational explanation for the rule's universality, based on the idea
that life at all scales is sustained by optimised, space-filling
fractal networks whose terminal units are invariant. His theory now
permits detailed quantitative calculations and predictions of a far
broader range of biological phenomena than previously imagined.
He is
currently engaged in exploring just how far these same rules have
predictive value for understanding such complex phenomena as tumour
development and social ecosystems. He believes the principals he has
elucidated can be harnessed to provide quantitative thermodynamic
description of the evolution of conscious thought. As President of the transdisciplinary Santa Fe Institute, Geoffrey West epitomises its goal of exploring the frontiers of knowledge by transcending the usual boundaries. For him, big-picture science can only move forward when researchers allow themselves to ask elementary questions without feeling defensive or vulnerable. In May of 2006, 'Time' magazine cited Geoffrey West in its selection of the world's top sixteen most influential scientists and thinkers of today. |
