Answer to the mystery of life is four

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Answer to the mystery of life is four19.07.2003By SIMON COLLINS, science reporterhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3513428 & thesection=news & thesubsection=generalScientists have found a simple mathematical relationship that connects thewhole of nature, from the tiniest cell to the vast forests of the Amazon.The connections are all based on the three dimensions of the physicalworld - length, depth and width - plus one, making the number 4."Four is the magic number of life," says Dr Geoffrey West of the Santa FeInstitute in New Mexico, a keynote speaker at the NZ Institute of Physicsannual conference last week.Dr West, a British-born physicist, and US ecologists James Brown and BrianEnquist have found more than 50 biological relationships, such as betweenbody size and heart rate, which are based on numbers taken to the power of1/4.Much of the theory is based on mathematics that can boggle the mind ofanyone who struggled through School Certificate maths.Suffice to say that it centres on equations involving square roots andnumbers to the power of 1/4.In simple maths, says Dr West, "if you are 16 times bigger than your dog,your heart rate is half the dog's rate."Average body size and lifetime are also related in the same ratio.So in principle, if you are 16 times the size of your dog, you will livetwice as long.We do better than that, thanks to modern medicine, but the average lifetimeof pre-European Maori was around 30.Remarkably, combining these two relationships means that the heart of everymammal beats roughly the same number of times in its average lifetime -around 1.5 billion times - regardless of whether it is a dog or a human, amouse or an elephant.The implication is clear - we can't beat nature."This says that there is a maximum lifespan for a given size," Dr West says.He and his colleagues have found that similar "quarter-power" rules governevery kind of life on Earth, from the rate at which single-celled bacteriaabsorb energy to the height of those Amazon trees.They believe this uniformity is because every living thing is made up ofdistribution networks carrying blood, air and other nutrients first throughbig tubes such as the aortic artery and then through a succession of smallertubes to the capillaries, which finally distribute the nutrients to cells.Within each class of species, such as mammals, the size of the last stage inthe chain, the capillaries, is the same.So are the cells that we are all made of.But as the organism gets bigger, the distribution network increases morethan would be expected - as if it had a fourth dimension.It is this increase in dimensionality that accounts for the 4. The 4represents actually 3 + 1, where 3 is the dimensionality of the space welive in.Auckland University physicist Dr Peter Wills says the theory developed by DrWest and his colleagues is widely accepted, even though it is still beingdeveloped."There is a great deal of interest in the approach he has taken," Dr Willssaid."I don't know anybody who thinks it's nonsense."********If this email is cut short, changingplanet/messagesYou can help us make a difference. Click here for details:http://changingplanet.supremalex.org/help.htmChanging Planet News - Where Ethics, Science and Spirituality BlendCOLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS PROJECT: If this email sparked emotions in you, positive or negative, please pray, meditate, visualize or concentrate on the best possible outcome for Humanity and Earth for AT LEAST 10 seconds. On the web at http://changingplanet.supremalex.orgNews and service since 1995