Why Size Matters:
From Bacteria to Blue Whales
John Tyler Bonner

Book Description | Table of Contents
Chapter 1 [HTML] or [PDF format]

ADDITIONAL ENDORSEMENTS:

"John Tyler Bonner's career in biology has been long, happy, and just a little larger than life. For more than sixty years, the invisible world he explores through the microscope has led him to big ideas about the nature of things. This tiny book is their summation. As you read it, the light on the stage of the microscope expands and expands until virtually everything is illuminated. In fact, after reading Why Size Matters, you may conclude that this book is the one and only place where size does not matter."--Jonathan Weiner, author of The Beak of the Finch and His Brother's Keeper

"John Tyler Bonner's latest book is a masterly summary of more than fifty years of thinking about why organisms are the size they are, and it is presented in the elegant prose we have come to expect from him. The theme is lucidly set out, developed using clear examples, and illustrated with drawings and graphs that enhance the text and his explanations of topics."--Brian K. Hall, Dalhousie University

"Why Size Matters has the usual spontaneity and insight of a book by John Tyler Bonner. It is full of interesting facts and ideas, and is fun to read-the next best thing to a conversation with the author himself. Bonner approaches the complex subject of size in biology with unabashed enthusiasm. He combines a literary flair with scientific sophistication to explain why dimension and scale so profoundly affect individual behavior and organic evolution."--Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Return to Book Description

File created: 4/24/2008

Questions and comments to: webmaster@press.princeton.edu
Princeton University Press