The Great Mental Models: Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology by Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien

“Combining a deep specialized knowledge in a domain with a broader understanding of the rules that govern the physical world is a rare combination that saves you time, money, and problems.” ~ “The Great Mental Models Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology”¹ by Shane Parrish.

Thoughts

It was greatly fulfilling to read this book. On the one hand, it was nostalgic, and on another, it was an eye-opener to know how things are connected. It took me back to my school days where I had learnt a lot of basic concepts like inertia, friction, evolution, etc. There is joy in learning for the sake of knowing things and in school, you get to learn new things in each class and it is a wonderful experience. Math and Physics were my favorite subjects in school, closely followed by Biology and Chemistry. As adults we read more and are exposed to more information on a daily basis, it is not the same as structured learning in school. As kids we learn new things in a variety of subjects but as adults the learning is sometimes focused on narrow areas of work or the group we’re in.

Of late, there are talks all over the world about overhauling the educational systems because, there is a general dissatisfaction and misunderstanding about what needs to be taught. Some want to reduce pure sciences and focus more on practical training, some want to focus on nationalism and history, some want to go back to religious teachings that are centuries older, and so forth. Instead of building upon what we have, there is a tendency to erase and start afresh. In the chapter on ‘Hierarchies’, Parrish cites the example of the French revolution to show that “People could not destroy the hierarchy altogether; they just ended up with a new form of it.” We see examples of this over and again. People who don’t learn from history are cursed to repeat it.

This book is a testament to the fact that learning basic sciences is crucial to our knowledge. They give us the building blocks using which so many of the happenings in the world can be explained. The world is a mystery when we’re born, and through every waking moment, we’re trying to make sense of it. Even the basic understanding of the Sun, the Moon, other animals, and vegetation will be flawed if we were to make our own theories about them. Centuries of research and debates have given rise to the current understanding of the world. We could seek to learn from them, understand that and add to it. By refining our understanding at different stages with new information, we can always connect the dots and fill the blanks. The best way to gain more understanding is to have different mental models and apply them to various situations.

The book covers terms in Physics (relativity, thermodynamics, inertia, friction, viscosity, velocity, leverage, etc.), terms in Chemistry (catalyst, alloying, etc.), and terms in Biology (evolution, ecosystem, replication, etc.) and explains how these fundamental concepts have parallels in social situations. One gets the feeling that everything is an interconnected web. Even a few of these mental models could be used for most situations in life and knowing them is incredibly useful. Shane says at the end of the book that these are tools and not necessarily connected together. It is for us to pick and choose what makes sense for us to form a latticework of models that we can best apply.

There are some great quotes in the book and a lot of enriching references. It is also an introduction to a lot of famous people - Aristotle, Rafi’ al-Tahtawi, Norman Bethune, Hadrian, Alice Hamilton, Lise Meitner, Taiichi Ohno, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mae West, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Leonardo da Vinci, Heidi Lamar, Frank Lloyd Wright, Geerat Vermeij etc. Also, many women scientists whose contributions were incredible but not well known. Overall, it is a great book to be read and reflected upon.

As I was reading this over the last week, I got this quote from James Clear’s newsletter² last Thursday and thought it was quite timely - “The fastest way to improve is to learn from others. Read good books Talk to people who have done it Soak up the lessons of the past Learn from the experiments history has already run and you can start the race halfway finished.”

Notes

Introduction

• Volume 1 had introduced 9 General Thinking concepts which had broad applicability.
• Volume 2 explores fundamental ideas from physics, chemistry, and biology and how these ideas offer insights that we can apply to improve our lives.
• Life will be better if we “work with nature instead of against it”. That needs the effort to understand nature itself. e.g. - Fram boat anecdote from In Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski. No one was able to get to North Pole since ships got destroyed due to the pressure from ice. Fram boat was designed to float on top of ice when the pressure from ice on both sides increased.
• Models in the book are value-neutral. They can be used to highlight positive or negative aspects of a situation. They function as metaphors or tools of comparison. They are tools that can be used in myriad ways.

Physics

Relativity

Put it into perspective.

• There is more than one way of looking at things. All perspectives may not be equally valid though.
• The key thing is to acknowledge that we may not have the full picture.
• E.g. - Galileo’s thought experiment about a person dropping a ball from a moving ship. The person in the ship sees it vertically moving down, a stationary person outside might see the lateral movement.
• E.g. - Einstein’s thought experiment about a person in a moving train seeing light from 2 ends of a train. The person sees light from the front first, but the person outside sees both arriving at the center simultaneously. I think this was mentioned in Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time”³.
• E.g. - Eyewitness testimony - from Rashomon⁴, a famous Japanese movie about differences in the testimonies of several eyewitnesses to a crime.
• E.g. - Chris Kinison’s killing in 2000. shows that Self-interest and time can distort a person’s memory.
• E.g. - Seeing things in a new lens. Story of 6 Muslim students from Iran in London in 1815. Mirza Salih, one of the students kept a diary of his experiences and his account of a visit to a museum shows how he was able to compare Iranian history with other countries.
• E.g. - Egyptian named al-Tahtawi traveled to Paris in the late 1820s and wrote about his 5 yrs in Paris and this had cultural and scientific impact in his country.
• Summary - In the physical world, relativity exists because things are moving in relation to other things. It is the same in the social world, there are always moving parts and different ways of looking at things.

Reciprocity

Give and Take.

• Newton’s third law - “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
• Physical world examples - gravity, jet propulsion, tackling in football, etc.
• Giving is as valuable as having. But doesn’t mean that for every good thing that you do, you get corresponding amount of positive results.
• Common phrases - “Quid pro quo” (something for something), “tit for tat” (this for that), “do ut des” (I give, so that you may give)
• E.g. - Norman Bethune, a Canadian surgeon, who provided medical services free to the poor and established a free-of-charge clinic when he was working in Montreal, who designed and developed the first ever mobile blood transfusion unit while in Spain, went to China in 1938 and was responsible in setting up a lot of medical infrastructure that saved millions of lives. His achievements are regarded as heroic in China even to this day.
• When we give, we get. We improve our physical health and feel better about ourselves and our place in the world.
• Concept - “Loss Aversion” - When compared directly, losses always loom larger than gains. This prevents people from giving if there is a risk of getting nothing at all.
• Concept - “Shadenfreude” - Joy in someone else’s misfortune. We feel strongly when someone’s misfortune seems to be earned, something that happened due to their misdeeds.
• E.g - “Eternal Treaty” between Egyptians and Hittites at a time when fighting wars and winning was the norm. This established peace which was very useful to both countries. They got more in return.
• Summary - “Be the change you want to see.” Small changes in your actions change your entire world.

Thermodynamics

Reduce chaos and find order.

• Laws of Thermodynamics -
  • First Law (Law of Conservation of Energy) - Energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system. It can only be transferred.
  • Second Law - Entropy of any isolated system always increases.
  • Third Law - Entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.
  • Fourth Law (Zeroth Law) - If two objects are in thermal equilibrium with a third object, then those two objects are also in thermal equilibrium with each other.
• Equilibrium
  • Systems always tend to move towards equilibrium. If there is hot object next to cold, there is energy transfer towards making both at the same temperature.
  • E.g. - Hadrian’s wall (facilitate interaction) - Used to control the movement of people.
  • E.g. - Great Wall of China (prevent interaction) - designed to prevent mingling of people/cultures. Was not successful since equilibrium cannot be avoided.
  • E.g. - Berlin Wall - built to stop movement of ideas and people. People still crossed, at great risks to themselves, many getting killed in the process.
• Disorder
  • Life is naturally disorderly and a constant effort is needed to maintain structure.
  • E.g. - Fairy tales, structure of a story, Hero’s journey.
• Summary - Barriers you erect will face a relentless pressure to get broken. Understanding randomness and bringing order is a basic pursuit of human life.

Inertia

Nothing happens unless something moves.

• Newton’s first law of motion (Inertia) - “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”
• Inertia helps explain why we continue with bad habits and why it is so difficult to make a systemic change.
• Once an idea gets rolling, it can be hard to stop. Momentum (p) = m*v, greater the mass and velocity, greater the momentum.
• E.g. Harmful effect of lead. Over time lead got used in so many different places that in spite of overwhelming evidence of its bad effect, it could not be removed from the day-to-day things.
• E.g. Absinthe - In contrast to lead, this lasted only for 50 yrs before it was banned altogether. Mass matters! It was easier to Absinthe out of the market.
• Intertia in War - If soldiers are able to rest well, they build better momentum.
• Escape velocity - The force that is needed to escape gravitation pull is highest at the beginning.
• E.g. Lise Meitner - Great researcher whose contributions were not recognized since she was a woman. But she persevered and continued her good work. Was instrumental in discovering nuclear fission. Was nominated for Nobel prize 29 times by Niels Bohr.
• Summary - Getting started is the hard part.

Friction and Viscosity

Movement is a battle.

• Friction - force that opposes movement of objects that are in contact with each other. Overcoming friction needs extra energy.
• Viscosity - Meausure of how hard it is to move through a liquid.
• Two aspects - a) What is easy in one might be hard on another. b) Scale matters (a tiny fish has to try hard to move through viscous sea water which is much easier for a whale)
• E.g. - Agnes Pockels, 19th century physicist who studied on her own and succedeed in a higly viscous environment which was against women.
• E.g. - Chernobyl nuclear power plant issue - Viscous information environment made information flow very difficult and that resulted in millions getting killed.
• E.g. - Inefficiency at mass-production systems that were studied by Toyota. Friction to change. Lean methodology by Taiichi Ohno mitigates the problem by reducing the friction at the working level.
• Summary - There is always something trying to slow us down. Reducing resistance is often easier than using more force.

Velocity

Direction over speed.

• It is much more important to pay attention to where you are going and not how fast you are moving.
• E.g. - Napoleon who was famous for his focus on speed towards a goal. This won him many battles. But the focus on this without accounting for factors that can limit it, can be dangerous. For e.g. Napoleon’s battle against Russia which was a failure since the distance was long and half the army died before reaching Moscow and had to return.
• E.g. - Mae West who was intensely focused on her career and diligently worked towards improving it. She was the highest woman earner in the U.S. at one point int time.
• Summary - Direction and speed are very important. We must adjust our tactics to continue towards our direction.

Leverage

Enough to move the world

• Archimedes - Said he could lift the Earth with the right lever.
• Three main types of physical levers - a) Force/Fulcrum/Weight (using a crowbar to open a door); b)Fulcrum/Weight/Force (wheelbarrow); c) Fulcrum/Force/Weight (baseball bat).
• Roger Volkema, in “Leverage”, two principles - a) perception, b) social construct
• When need to know three things - a) Do I have it? b) Where and when should I apply it? c) How do I keep it?
• E.g. - Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was Queen of France and then England, had a lot of influence through leverage that she learnt to wield.
• E.g. - The dark side of Leverage - The coal companies in West Virginia who kept the workers in ignorance and poverty.
• Summary - Simply working hard towards a path is probably not the right solution. The right one is to identify the appropriate levers use them appropriately to put effort in the right areas.

Chemistry

Activation Energy

Get to the end.

• Activation energy is the energy required for a chemical system to initiate and complete a reaction. Once heat is applied, molecules collide, the transition state is unstable and finally a new compound is created or the original ingredients are transformed.
• Every reaction needs a minimum level of activation energy. One sheet of newspaper is not enough to start and sustain a fire in the fireplace. It may burn and then die out. It takes more paper, fires in multiple points to get the logs burning.
• Bigger and more challenging something is, more activation energy is needed.
• E.g. - Getting out of addiction.
• E.g. - Thomas Sankara from Burkina Faso, a western African country who built a campaign, mobilizing support from the ground and overthrew the political system.
• E.g. - Countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand experienced periods of intense growth but only the first 3 succeeded in turning that into a sustainable long-term system.
• Summary - Determining and using the right amount of activation energy is crucial to making lasting changes. If the amount is not right, the change will fizzle out.

Catalysts

Change agent.

• Catalysts accelerate change. Without them, the actual change may take a significantly more time. Moreover, catalysts are not changed by the change that they bring about.
• E.g. - Catalytic converters in cars (diesel & gas), alcohol manufacture, soap manufacture, Elizabeth Fulhame and her work on oxidation, Industrial Revolution, the printing press, the black death, private spaces in homes (Louis XV)
• Summary - People and technology often act as catalysts. The goal should be to either be a catalyst or use a catalyst to speed up transformations.

Alloying

Greater than the sum of its parts

• Alloy - A mixture, either in solution or compound, of two or more metals, or a metal and a nonmetal.
• E.g. - Sumerians made bronze (90% copper, 10% tin) which was better than copper or tin in isolation. Steel (iron + carbon) is much harder than pure iron.
• Medicine - A combination of two or more drugs could have a greater benefit than each drug separately.
• Life - We may not have all the skills needed to complete something. If we partner with someone, that creates an alloy which could be stronger than each.
• E.g. - Two men beating an army - Tecumseh a Shawnee chief and Isaac Brock, a Major-General in the British army, worked together to keep Americans out of Canadian territory.
• Knowledge is the ultimate alloy. We learn from others, the concepts that we learn are made stronger with experience.
• Five components of knowledge by Aristotle - science (episteme), art/craft (techne), practical knowledge (phronesis), intuitive apprehension (nous) and wisdom (sophia).
• E.g. - Leonardo da Vinci was a creative genius mainly because he combined knowledge from different disciples.
• Summary - With the right mixture, one + one can really equal ten. Alloying produces something that is greater than its parts.

Biology

Evolution Part One: Natural Selection and Extinction

Adapt or die.

• Natural Selection - The frequency of traits within a population changes as a response to environmental conditions, resulting in species that are more adaptable to the environment.
• Two species requiring the same resources cannot coexist in the same area. There are over 10 million distinct species with only 20% being catalogued! So many species might be going extinct without us knowing.
• E.g. - Evolution of language. There have been thousands of languages over centuries and most are dead now. French is simpler and more adaptable than Latin. Hence it survived.
• Summary - The world is constantly changing and we need to adapt in order to survive.

Evolution Part Two: Adaptation Rate and the Red Queen Effect

Getting better all the time.

• Adaptation requires understanding the environment and what is changing in it.
• E.g. French in World War II were prepared for how they fought World War I and won and got defeated by Germany.
• The Red Queen effect - “It takes all the running you can do, to be in the same place”. It is a sobering thought. Being lazy and not doing anything will set you back.
• Application to Business - Competitors are always working to get ahead, Customers are changing, needs are changing, so one must always try to get ahead of oneself. Standing still means taking a setback.
• Vestigial structures - If it does no harm, and doesn’t consume energy to maintain, don’t bother.
• Exaptation - An animal produces something to adapt to some situation and that gets used for a totally different purpose. E.g. feathers in birds first provided heat and attractiveness and later got used to help in flight, Self-playing piano, remote-controlled torpedo.
• Great quotes - “We don’t always know the value of something at the outset, and there doesn’t always have to be a justification for doing everything.”, “Having to know the benefit of everything before you begin leads to missed opportunities.”
• E.g. When Radium was invented, no one knew it could be used in hospitals. Play-Doh was used as wallpaper cleaner for 20 yrs before becoming a household toy, Botox is toxin that causes paralysis but is used to cure muscle and limb spasms.
• Summary - Adaptations and exaptations are part of a continuous process that are needed to survive in a changing world. Success comes from being flexible to change.

Ecosystem

Everything is connected.

• Ecosystem - Community of interacting species and their environment, an intricate web with multitude of dependencies.
• Saving an animal from extinction by breeding them in a cage is not as effective as protecting their ecosystem.
• Keystone animals and ones that play crucial role in the ecosystem and if their numbers dwindle, it could destroy the system.
• Trade ecosystem, 3 lessons -
  • a) If you try to close off a section of the system, it will self-organize in a different way. Story of China banning all trade fearing a weakening of power, but trade continued.
  • b) When external factors come in, one needs to adapt. When trade opened up many adapted to producing Silk.
  • c) Ecosystems are resilient - e.g. Chinese community in Manila.
• e.g. - Bill Walsh - created a culture that valued a well-functioning ecosystem that helped 49ers become champions.
• Summary - Everything is connected and small actions can have unintended consequences. Hence we must think before effecting a change.

Niches

Find a good fit.

• Generalists can survive and flourish in any setting. Specialists thrive in stable conditions.
• Convergence - Features and behaviors are similar when conditions are similar. E.g. - Wings of bats and birds, features of species from different continents. The number of ways to fulfill a function is finite.
• This could also mean that the same culture across difference places, could produce similar results.
• Coke is an example of being a generalist.
• Summary - There is a trade-off between specialization and generalization. Specialization means less stress but cannot survive in all conditions, while it is the opposite for generalization.

Self-Preservation

Survive to thrive.

• Self-preservation a fundamental behavior to all organisms.
• Animals do a lot of things to protect themselves. Many animals do selfless things for the self-preservation of the community or species.
• E.g. - Gioconda Belli and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in the 1970s.
• E.g. - Derinkuyu: Turkey’s ancient underground city.
• Summary - Self-preservation is a core instinct that explains a lot of irrational things that we might do.

Replication

Copy, copy, copy.

• mitosis - making identical copy, meiosis - reproduction, creating new possibilities.
• E.g. - Habsburg family - They went into ruin due to generations of intermarriage.
• E.g. - Germans getting defeated by French. Four elements of commander’s intent: formulate, communicate, interpret, and implement. The key thing is to have flexibility to implement at the ground level.
• Replicating a culture - example of tea.
• We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Often a great starting point is from something that already exists.

Cooperation

Work Together

• This is similar to Alloying. The sum is greater than its parts. It is what really helped in the development of human civilization and build complex societies.
• Dunbar Number
  • 5 people: Inner core of closeness. Partners, family, best friends.
  • 15 people: Close friend group.
  • 50 people: Basic friends and acquaintances.
  • 150 people: Part of a community.
  • 500 people: Friends of friends.
  • 1500 people: Upper limit which includes number of faces that you can put names to.

Hierarchical Organization

Know your place

• Hierarchies can be found everywhere in the animal kingdom. E.g. Hens, Chimpanzees.
• Plato & Plotinus - The entire universe is arranged in a hierarchical structure. Pebbles, soil, etc. at the bottom, plants, then animals, humans and god at the top.
• French society before the revolution had 3 estates : 1st Estate - Church and Clergy, 2nd Estate - Aristocracy, 3rd Estate - everyone else (~98%). During the revolution, a vast majority was in abject poverty. People overthrew the system and instilled another which was even worse. But in all subsequent systems, there was some kind of hierarchy.
• E.g. - Chile miners who formed their own hierarchy while trapped in a mine.
• Summary - Hierarchy is core to most animals. Lack of hierarchy and too much hierarchy leads to unrest.

Incentives

Shape Behavior

• Consistent but infrequent rewards > frequent rewards. infrequent rewards give better behavioral changes.
• Drive for incentives is everywhere. People decide on immediate rewards while voting or doing many things in life. CEOs with short tenure think of immediate goals, people with quarterly use-it-or-lose-it budget spend recklessly towards the end.
• E.g. - Thalidomide drug of the 50s. It was destructive but was sold in so many places across the world due to the incentives given to people in the sales and others in the middle. Luckily U.S got saved due to Dr. Frances Kelley.
• Summary - Incentive can shape behavior. We’re wired to respond to it. Companies, organizations focused on incentives can manipulate people into doing the wrong things.

Tendency to Minimize Energy Output

Least effort principle

• All living beings have developed mechanisms to increase their energy efficiency. E.g. - turtles, sharks
• Heuristics - We take good enough decisions and not the best ones.
• Satisficing - We search for the first thing in our brain that satisfies our minimum acceptable conditions.
• Remember base rates and pay attention to quality of data.
• Cubicle or not - Very good argument against open plan offices.
• Summary - We have a natural tendency to minimize energy. Sometimes it helps, many times it gets in the way of doing difficult things.

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Book cover Image Credit: Amazon

Footnotes

1. Parrish, Shane, et al. The Great Mental Models, Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology.  Latticework Publishing, 2020. ↩

2. https://jamesclear.com/newsletter ↩

3. Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. United Kingdom: Bantam Books, 1998. ↩

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon ↩