Geoffrey West

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Geoffrey West
Geoffrey West.jpg
Born 1940
Taunton, Somerset, United Kingdom
Residence United States
Fields Theoretical physics
Theoretical biology
Institutions Santa Fe Institute
Los Alamos National Laboratory
University of New Mexico
Alma mater Cambridge University
Stanford University
Known for Metabolic theory of ecology
Notable awards Mercer Award

Geoffrey Brian West (born 1940 in Taunton, Somerset) is a British theoretical physicist, former president and distinguished professor of the Santa Fe Institute. He is one of the leading scientists working on a scientific model of cities. Among other things his work states that with the doubling of a city's size, services per capita will generally increase by 15%.[1]

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Early life and education [edit]

Geoffrey West was born in 1940 in Taunton, Somerset, a rural town in western England and moved to London when he was 13.[2] He received a bachelor's degree in physics from Cambridge and pursued graduate studies at Stanford, California.

Career [edit]

He eventually became a Stanford faculty member before he joined the particle theory group at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory. After Los Alamos, he became president of the Santa Fe Institute, where he worked and works on biological issues such as the allometric law[3] and other power laws in biology.[4][5]

Awards [edit]

He has since been honored as one of Time magazine's Time 100.[6] He is a member of the World Knowledge Dialogue Scientific Board.[7]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Bettencourt, L. M. A.; Lobo, J.; Helbing, D.; Kuhnert, C.; West, G. B. (2007). "Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (17): 7301–7306. doi:10.1073/pnas.0610172104. PMC 1852329. PMID 17438298.  edit
  2. ^ "Geoffrey West". Physics Central. Retrieved 2006-05-02. 
  3. ^ West, G. B.; Brown, J. H.; Enquist, B. J. (1997). "A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology". Science 276 (5309): 122–126. doi:10.1126/science.276.5309.122. PMID 9082983.  edit
  4. ^ West, G. B.; Brown, J. H.; Enquist, B. J. (2001). "A general model for ontogenetic growth". Nature 413 (6856): 628–631. doi:10.1038/35098076. PMID 11675785.  edit
  5. ^ Gillooly, J. F.; Brown, J. H.; West, G. B.; Savage, V. M.; Charnov, E. L. (2001). "Effects of Size and Temperature on Metabolic Rate". Science 293 (5538): 2248–2251. doi:10.1126/science.1061967. PMID 11567137.  edit
  6. ^ Time Magazine's article about West
  7. ^ World Knowledge Dialogue

External links [edit]