title: Energy and time determine scaling in biological and computer designs.
abstract: Metabolic rate in animals and power consumption in computers are analogous quantities that scale similarly with size. We analyse vascular systems of mammals and on-chip networks of microprocessors, where natural selection and human engineering, respectively, have produced systems that minimize both energy dissipation and delivery times. Using a simple network model that simultaneously minimizes energy and time, our analysis explains empirically observed trends in the scaling of metabolic rate in mammals and power consumption and performance in microprocessors across several orders of magnitude in size. Just as the evolutionary transitions from unicellular to multicellular animals in biology are associated with shifts in metabolic scaling, our model suggests that the scaling of power and performance will change as computer designs transition to decentralized multi-core and distributed cyber-physical systems. More generally, a single energy-time minimization principle may govern the design of many complex systems that process energy, materials and information.This article is part of the themed issue 'The major synthetic evolutionary transitions'.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA melaniem@cs.unm.edu.
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-8848-9554
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moses
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bezerra
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Forrest
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001481:Basal Metabolism; D005075:Biological Evolution; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D008322:Mammals / Q000502:physiology*; D008838:Microcomputers; D008954:Models, Biological; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012641:Selection, Genetic
keywords: computer architecture; evolutionary transitions; metabolism; networks; scaling