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Over time, automobile designs have converged. We saw more diverse designs in the past. Why? There are only so many solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations that are passably aerodynamic. So the selection pressure has become more uniform. So argues Geoff West in Scale.
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More true the higher the speed, esp if other variables don’t grow as fast, like power. So it’s selection pressure with higher speed. In general true of many stressors when they enter asymmetrically dominant regimes. Slow-swimming fish, flightless birds come in many more shapes.
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Fun example I learned from my wife when she worked in slot machine business: penny/nickel/dime slots have more narrative variety and themes, game/movie tie-ins and more entertaining noises etc. Dollar slots are plainer. People betting in dollar increments are all about the money.
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I think this follows from the simple idea that local optima will be greater in number than global optima. Add to that different emphases across species; the peacock may require a stronger optimum in one area but tolerate weaker optima elsewhere in its body plan.
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Turtles are aerodynamic if their speed gets above 80mph. Partially an initially hydronamic solution, as it aids escape from drowning, but it works at the speeds where air starts to behave like a fluid, instead of a gas.
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So that was Galileo's big realization on the scale limits of organisms: cross-sectional area grows quadratically, but volume grows cubically. So strength-to-weight gets worse with size.
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