The Physics of Spreading Ideas: h index, m quotient
Professors Bejan and Lorente discovered that the main features of citations history (S-shaped curve, increasing h index, decreasing m quotient) are predictable with the constructal law of how an idea flows over a populated territory.
An idea flows in two ways: fast and long, along established channels of researchers interested in the idea, and slow and short, sideways from channels, by "diffusion" to new users. The first regime accounts for the rising portion of the S curve, and the second for the slow-down.
The complexity of the design of fast channels increases in time due to the evolution of communications technologies.
The Constructal Law makes biology and economics be like physics
by Adrian Bejan and Sylvie Lorente
The Constructal Law governs the universal phenomenon of generation and evolution of design (shape, structure, rhythm) in animate, inanimate and human systems. It states the time direction of the evolutionary design phenomenon, and defines the concept of design evolution in physics.
The Constructal Law accounts for oneness of animate and inanimate designs, the origin of finite-size organs on animals and vehicles, the flow of stresses as the generator of design in solid structures (skeletons, vegetation), the universality and rigidity of hierarchy in all flow systems, and the global design of human flows. Noteworthy is the tapestry of distributed energy systems, which balances nodes of production with networks of distribution on the landscape, and serves as key to energy sustainability and empowerment.
At the global level, the Constructal Law accounts for the geography and design of human movement, wealth and communications.
Engineering science consists of these few principles on which nature is founded: the laws of mechanics, thermodynamics, and design.
The net result of civilization’s advances in knowledge and technology is that we move more mass over greater distances. This time direction is the constructal law, the physics law of design and evolution, and this mental viewing came from engineering.
The constructal law covers all the phenomena of design and evolution in nature. The conference will explore the unifying power of the constructal law in all its domains, from biology and geophysics to globalization, energy sustainability and security. The conference will also address the place of the constructal law in physics and thermodynamics.
The Natural Design of Hierarchy: Basketball vs Academics
International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics
Vol. 6, 2011
This article shows that sports evolution empowers us to witness evolutionary biology in our time frame, in a way that everybody can see, understand and discuss.
The Constructal Law Design of the Biosphere and Globalization
The constructal law accounts for the design of the biosphere: the global movement of mass, as the action of constructal engines (geophysical, animal, human made) that dissipate their power into brakes (interactions with the environment).
The resulting designs are global: vegetation, animal locomotion, vision, cognition, hierarchy, science and technology evolution, economic activity (GNP) and the production and distribution of useful energy.
Journal of Heat Transfer, January 2011, Volume 133, Issue 1, 011001 (7 pages). doi:10.1115/1.4002223
- Design and evolution as physics: animate + inanimate
- The flow of animal mass: flying, running & swimming
- The flow of people and goods
- The "golden ratio": vision, cognition, guided locomotion
- Witnessing evolution: sports, speed
The PhD thesis of Achintya Kumar Pramanick, strongly rooted in Constructal Theory, presents an analytical treatment of some gradually evolving coherent problems of
thermodynamic optimization with engineering importance to propose some physical theories.
Rick Pantaleo, the host of "Our World" on the Voice of America, discusses with Adrian Bejan the constructal law of design and evolution in nature, the phenomenon of sports evolution, and why the fastest sprinters and swimmers come from two different geographical origins.
Few Large and Many Small: Hierarchy in Movement on Earth
S. Lorente & A. Bejan, International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics. Vol. 5, No. 3, 2010, pp. 254-267.
This paper shows how the constructal law predicts the emergence of hierarchy, as a natural design of the movement of mass on earth: animals, vehicles, rivers, etc.
Constructal Theory on the cover of IEEE Transactions
on Components and Packaging Technologies
The article "Constructal Microchannel Network for Flow Boiling in a Disc-Shaped Body" from X. Daguenet-Frick, J. Bonjour, and R. Revellin presents the constructal design of cooling with flow boiling.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B - The Constructal Law of Design and Evolution in Nature
Why are lungs and river basins "vascular"?
Why do animals and rivers have "scaling laws"?
Why is there "technology evolution"?
This essay shows the place of the Constructal Law in the physics of design (animate, inanimate, human), and how the Constructal Law unifies all the numerous ad hoc (contradictory) statements of optimality proposed by others
On Flow and Form: The established view is that Growth leads to Form. With the Constructal Law we discover that it is Flow, not Growth, that leads to Form
Follow Constructal.org on your iPhone! Open this link with the browser http://constructal.org/mobile/
Tip: create a shortcut on your desktop, this will display a Constructal.org icon, for quicker access.
Vision, Cognition and Animal Movement are One Design in Nature, and it is predicted from the constructal law.
Adrian Bejan, Int. J. of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics. Vol. 4, No. 2 (2009) 97–104
Read Prof. Jaime Cervantes de Gortari's review of Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics 3rd Ed. Wiley (2006) by A. Bejan
"The truly innovative Constructal Theory [ ... ] predictions reported in this book are the scaling laws of all animal locomotion [...],
the distribution of the sizes of human settlements, the [...] scaling laws of river basins,
the shape of all Egyptian pyramids, vegetation, and the evolution of science and civilization."
Cahiers de Science & Vie (No 106, Aug-Sept 2008) devotes a feature article to the constructal-law prediction of the uniqueness of the shape of all ancient Pyramids.
In this feature article in the Mechanical Engineering magazine of the ASME, Professors Bejan and Lorente outline the place of the constructal law in the physics of design in nature, and the hot constructal developments on the engineering frontier: the vascularization revolution, smart materials, self healing, self cooling, and compact high-density flow structures.
See also the book Design with Constructal Theory (Wiley, 2008).
In this 18 September article Tom Kuntz connects the Constructal Law to the evolution of river basins, sports and ... the design on the parking lots around the stadiums!
The Wall Street Journal : Constructal Evolution of Football
Matthew Futterman explains why team sports keep evolving toward speed and taller athletes. American football is one example, and its natural design (strategy, game rules, athletes' measurements) evolves toward easier flowing, in accordance with the Constructal Law.
This new Journal of Experimental Biology article shows that the constructal law predicts the evolution of speed sports: the fastest runners and swimmers will be heavier, taller and more slender. In the future, speed competitions might have to be divided into weight categories.
The Constructal Law versus the Second Law of Thermodynamics
In this MIT video lecture, Adrian Bejan shows how the constructal law "covers every configuration in physics, from animate, to inanimate, to us, the societal." He demonstrates how his law predicts the tree-shaped flow of all rivers, animal locomotion and human settlement distribution. With the constructal law "thermodynamics becomes a science of systems with configuration."
"Constructal Day" event in Paris, 11th of June, 2009
The colloquium "Constructal Theory and Multi-scale Geometries" will be held in Paris on 11 June 2009 at the École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (ENSTA), Unité Chimie et Procédés, 32, Bd Victor, Paris 15e.
Constructal Human Dynamics, Security and Sustainability
In this new book, globalization, security infrastructure and energy sustainability are based on the constructal law, which means to design them as evolving global "flow" structures that are "alive" with movement of personnel, equipment, information, education, etc.
The constructal unification of biological and geophysical design
In this article in Physics of Life Reviews, Professors Bejan and Marden show that the constructal law is the physics law of evolution, and that it unites animate with inanimate design, for example the scaling rules of animal movement with Horton's scaling rules of river basins. These apples and oranges and many more nuts (turbulence, organ sizes, rhythm, snowflakes, mud cracks, splashing droplets, Zipf distributions) are predicted with the constructal law.
The principle that generates dissimilar patterns inside aggregates of organisms
In this Physica A paper, the constructal law explains the diverse patterns and regimes of self-organization that compete for existence in complex systems such as pedestrian crowds, coral colonies, and other large groups of live (i.e. flow) systems.
Science and technology as evolving flow architectures
This essay traces the evolution of thermodynamics from its origins to ad hoc applications of thermodynamic optimization (entropy generation minimization) and the principle-based generation of flow configuration in nonequilibrium systems (constructal theory).
In this new article Adrian Bejan uses the constructal law to explain why independent researchers will never disappear, in spite of coercion from administrators and academic lobbies that favor the big groups.
[ Interview of A. Bejan on the Duke Chronicle]
OPEN SOURCE TEACHING : The constructal law of design generation in nature
In this interview for educators and students, Adrian Bejan discusses MIT, education, the world, history, science, thermodynamics, the constructal law, and how to have fun with new ideas.
This book offers a revolutionary approach to "design as science", from the tree and the forest to electronics cooling, decontamination and vascular smart materials.
Cahiers de Science & Vie (No 106, Aug-Sept 2008) devotes a feature article to the constructal-law prediction of the uniqueness of the shape of all ancient Pyramids.
Unifying Constructal Theory of Tree Roots, Canopies and Forests... and the Eiffel Tower
The flow of stresses and the flow of water: This new paper (Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2008) shows how the constructal law predicts "vegetation" architecture, and the empirical "rules" of Leonardo, Fibonacci and Zipf.
This new paper in the Journal of Applied Physics shows that tree-shaped 3D vasculatures offer greater flow access than parallel channels, more so at larger scales, in accordance with nature and the constructal law.
This fresh constructal-theory article shows that the hierarchy persists because it is the global flow structure that supports the easiest flow of ideas, to students and into the books of our evolving science and culture (International Journal of Design and Nature, Vol2, Issue 4).
Physics Explains Why University Rankings Won't Change by Kendall Morgan [ read online! ]
Prof links school rankings to constructal theory by Jessica Lichter [ read online! ]
In this article Peder Zane reviews the deterministic powers of the Constructal Law to predict design in nature, the animate and the inanimate realms together.
Constructal view of the scaling laws of street networks
This Physica A article from A. Heitor Reis unveils the dynamics behind geometry generating the inverse-power distribution laws of street lengths and nodes, on the basis of Constructal Theory.
Scale invariance deviation explained by Constructal theory
In their Physica A paper "Parabolic scaling of tree-shaped constructal network", a french-american team show that constructal networks perform better than Fractal, and that Constructal Theory predicts the deviations from scale invariance observed in many natural phenomena.
Video! Constructal Theory explains why a river looks like a tree
In this interview, Adrian Bejan explains us the reasons behind the similarities between water flow structures like river and botanical trees, on the basis of Constructal Theory.
In the July issue of the MECHANICAL ENGINEERING magazine (ASME), Adrian Bejan explores 300-year old roots of prefigurations of Constructal theory, through the scientific contributions of Denis Papin and Sadi Carnot, both French engineers. This article outlines the place that the constructal law occupies in thermodynamics, next to the second law.
This new book dedicated to "Constructal Theory of Social Dynamics" will be available on June.
SPRINGER is offering you a 20% discount on this title good through July 31, 2007!
You can already go to the CTSD book's webpage and use the promotion code EE2635 to command it!.
Read Prof. Jaime Cervantes de Gortari's review of Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics 3rd Ed. Wiley (2006) by A. Bejan
"The truly innovative Constructal Theory [ ... ] predictions reported in this book are the scaling laws of all animal locomotion [...],
the distribution of the sizes of human settlements, the [...] scaling laws of river basins,
the shape of all Egyptian pyramids, vegetation, and the evolution of science and civilization."
Along with constructal theory The Faculty of Geosciences and the Environment of the University of Lausanne publish a new book about Constructal Theory by Profs. Bejan, Lorente, Miguel, and Reis, edited by J. Hernandez and M. Cosinschi (204 pages, 96 figures, 184 references).
Among other topics, The Shape and living systems, Constructal theory of river basins, and Agglomeration or deposition of aerosol particles are addressed in this book.
In these three books published by L'Harmattan, Patrick Kalason uses a constructal and trifunctional systematic approach to propose new keys to understand the emergency of sociodynamic forms such as religious practices, negociation processes, and communication mechanisms underlying social changes (in French).
Antonio Miguel investigates here a new application of constructal theory: describing and predicting the formation of dissimilar patterns inside elements of the same species under different hydrodynamics conditions (from Journal of Theoretical Biology 242, 2006, 954–961).
Constructal Theory: Sustainability A Treehugger serie of incoming 4 articles
In this first article Tim Mc Gee emphasizes the role and relevancy of a new law of physics (the Constructal Law) regarding sustainability and the environment.
Heterogeneous porous media as multiscale structures
The “porous medium” that has tree-shaped labyrinths is heterogeneous, with multiple scales that are distributed nonuniformly.
These features justify comparisons with the design of natural porous structures.
Read online this article from the Journal of Applied Physics.
Constructal theory of generation of configuration in nature and engineering
This article from A. Bejan and S. Lorente, Applied Physics Reviews, Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 100, 2006, 041301: was selected for the Sept. 1, 2006 issue of the Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research.
This multidisciplinary university research initiative concern the design of autonomic materials, and includes researches on biomimetics and constructal design.
Constructing Animal Locomotion from New Thermodynamics Theory
Adrian Bejan and James H. Marden have developed an analytical formula that can predict many features of animal shape and locomotion. This theory could help for understanding the animal evolution's patterns. Read this article from American Scientist, July-August 2006, Volume 94, Number 4.
Understand the transition between "sometimes round, sometimes crown" liquid droplets using Constructal theory. An article from A. Bejan and D. Gobin, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 49 (2006) 2412–2419.
Heatlines and masslines were some of the first attempts to treat the configurations of flow systems on the basis of principle. Read more on this subject in this article from V. A. F. Costa: "Bejan's Heatlines and Masslines for Convection Visualization and Analysis" (Applied Mechanics Reviews, Vol. 59, MAY 2006).
Constructal theory of global circulation and climate In this paper, A. H. Reis and A. Bejan develop model of heat transport on the earth surface that accounts for the solar and terrestrial radiation as the heat source and heat sink and with natural convection loops as the transport mechanism...
[article | Review ]
An article from Adrian Bejan from the Journal of Experimental Biology 208, 1677-1686 (2005), first published April 26, 2005
[html | pdf | image(full size)]
The constructal law and the thermodynamics of flow systems with configuration
E. F. OBERT AWARD, ASME, 2004
An article from A. Bejan, S. Lorente, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 3203–3214
Sylvie Lorente and Adrian Bejan are co-authors of this first book written in French concerning the Constructal Theory
[content|Review by A. Hetor Reis]
PHYSICS TODAY published 2 letters from Adrian Bejan and Alexandru Morega concerning the Constructal Theory and scaling laws in nature, Sept. 2004, p. 36
[html-pdf]
Bejan's Constructal Theory of Shape and Structure The proceedings of the 1st International Bejan's symposium held on 31 october 2003 can be ordered from the Evora Geophysic Center, 219 pages ISBN: 972-9039-75-5
[content-details]
3rd Ed announced
The 3rd edition of this 1997 book from Adrian Bejan, that first presented the constructal theory, will be published in 2006
Entropy Generation Minimization This 1996 book from Adrian Bejan presents the diverse and expanding field of Entropy Generation Minimization (EGM), CRC Press, 362 pages, ISBN: 0849396514
NEW! 
