Steven Vogel (1) (1940–2015)

How man and nature make things differently.

Much harder to decide what to take away from this work to apply to design. The author ignores how human technologies scaffold in ways that constrain your future choices. The emphasis of the book is on mechanical systems but much of the mechanics is now also subject to information driven compatibility.

But the subject matter of nature vs human design should be an academic discipline in its own right.

Mostly the physics of leaves, not their molecular biology. I learned many interesting things - that you can float using a wet pillow-case, but not a dry one, why your gas mileage goes down so quickly with increased speed, and a review of the peculiarities of water (the way it adheres to itself, the way its density changes with temperature) that permits life as we know it. Also, why you have to use a dish cloth when you clean dishes; the velocity of a viscous fluid at the luminal surface is zero.