Skip to content
Home / Life and Evolution as Physics

Life and Evolution as Physics

To start the Distinguished Lecture series for the 2017-2018 academic year, Dr. Adrian Bejan (Mechanical Engineering), gave a thought-provoking talk revolving around the Constructal Law, titled “Life and Evolution as Physics.” Constructal Law, which simply states “For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it,” was first introduced by Dr. Bejan in 1996. Interestingly, it has been able to consistently describe many phenomena, including airport design, spread of city population and successfully predicted the 2008 Beijing Olympics outcomes.

The lecture was immediately followed by speaker meet and greet as well as a student-led townhall discussion, in which students were able to ask Dr. Bejan follow-up questions regarding his talk and career directly. The next distinguished lecture is planned for October 26, 2017 with speaker Dr. Donald Cool of the Radiation Safety Electric Power Research Institute.