Nature's envelope

Nature's envelope is a concept in biology. It is a simple way of depicting the scope and scale of all living systems. It relies on the assertion that all life is a single and complex array of interacting processes; and all processes can be depicted in terms of size (of participants or consequences) and time (duration of processes). When plotted on a grid using log10 scales, the activities extend over 21 orders of magnitude of size/distance and 35 orders of magnitude of time. At one extreme, the briefest event is the capture of energy from a photon as it passes through, at the speed of light, a chlorophyll molecule measuring a few nanometres. The other extreme is marked by the evolution of the complete biosphere, inclusive of its influence on the atmosphere, over a period of about 4 billion years.

Nature's Envelope, green, contains all processes that make up life. Processes and activities conducted or caused by living systems are plotted on a logarithmic grid.

References

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