Cats Paws and Catapults: Mechanical
Worlds of Nature and People by
Steven Vogel
Mechanical Engineering By Us And By Nature
Life is what biologys all about. Technology is something else altogether.
Or so I believed before I got into a kind of biology thats about technology
as well as life, begins biomechanics expert Steven Vogel in the preface to
Cats Paws and Catapults. Vogel examines the mechanical worlds of
nature and people in such chapters as The Stiff and the Soft and The
Matter of Magnitude. Lots of line-drawing illustrations help readers
understand the examples used to answer questions of animal and
machine efficiency, design and repair. Vogel clearly loves the puzzles of
biology--why, for instance, do daffodil stems bend at only one precise
spot? This book is filled with intriguing answers to such hidden questions,
and curious readers will eagerly dive into Vogels investigations of whether
nature or human design is superior and why the two technologies have
diverged so much. --Therese Littleton

Personal Review: Cats Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds
of Nature and People by Steven Vogel
This is a great book. Not great in the sense of changing the world as
Newton, Darwin, and Freud did,
but great in the sense of well done. It is informative and entertaining at the
same time.
Most of the book is a "compare and contrast" man made things and things
in nature. A small part
is devoted to debunking the belief that whatever nature does is the best
way to do it. Vogel
explains why airplanes do not have flapping wings. The laws of physics
apply in both worlds.
Bones and I beams break under sufficient loads. The chapter titled "The
Matter of Magnitude" is
important throughout the book. Things do not scale up. An elephant's legs
are not as slender
as a deer's. Almost all of a small animal's mass is close to the surface, so
it is easy to
disapate heat from a hard working muscle. A large animal would cook itself
without additional
means of cooling.
There are chapters about shapes, surfaces, angles, rigidity, tension and
compression, pulling
versus pushing, engines, transmissions, pumps, jets, manufacturing, and
copying.
You do not have to be a mechanical engineer or have a great interest in
biology to enjoy this book.
I think most readers with a variety of interests will enjoy it and learn a lot
from it.
Even language fans will enjoy it. There is a pleasant phrase on almost
every page, an expression
that will make you think "I wish I had said that."
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