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Nature and humans build their devices with the same earthly materials and use them in the same air and water, pulled by the same gravity. Why, then, do their designs diverge so sharply? Humans, for instance, love right angles, while nature's angles are rarely right and usually rounded. Our technology goes around on wheels--and on rotating pulleys, gears, shafts, and cams--yet in nature only the tiny propellers of bacteria spin as true wheels. Our hinges turn because hard parts slide around each other, whereas nature's hinges (a rabbit's ear, for example) more often swing by bending flexible materials.
In this marvelously surprising, witty book, Steven Vogel compares these two mechanical worlds, introduces the reader to his field of biomechanics, and explains how the nexus of physical law, size, and convenience of construction determine the designs of both people and nature.
Steven Vogel teaches at Duke University.
Customer Review: A biologist view of design of living organisms
For anyone who has wondered about the design of nature and compared it to the design of man, where are the similitudes and the sticking differences.. why?. This is a superb book that should make engineers have a deeper insight of the restrictions imposed by the enviroment, but also to see how nature's forms follow funtion
Customer Review: Fascinating! How nature and humans make things differently.
This book proved to be unexpectedly fascinating. It presented a wide-ranging comparison of human technology with the way nature gets things done. Several great questions were asked: e.g. why do humans use metals so much, but not nature? Examples cover a huge range of nature. His coverage is authoritative, well-documented and balanced. It was very refreshing to read a nature book with such a different perspective.


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