Topic
Wiring economy
Episodes and research papers from From First Principles that help explain Wiring economy from the ground up.
Research
Papers and studies featured by the show.
Surface optimization governs the local design of physical networks
Imagine you're building a city's plumbing system. The old idea was to use the least amount of pipe possible to connect every house. This paper argues that nature is smarter than that. Instead of just minimizing the length of the pipes, it also considers their thickness and tries to minimize the total surface area of all the pipes. This different goal explains why we see weird but efficient designs in nature, like three branches sprouting from one point or a tiny branch shooting off at a perfect right angle. It's a more realistic model for how to build things in the physical world, where thickness and maintenance matter just as much as length.