Scholars@Duke
Adrian Bejan

Adrian Bejan

J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
abejan@duke.edu
148A Engineering Bldg, Box 90300, Durham, NC 27708-0300
148A Engineering Bldg, Box 90300, Durham, NC 27708

Featured Works

University Rankings: Quality, Size and Permanence

Journal article European Review · August 1, 2020 Featured Publication Why are the rankings of universities not changing? Why is the demographic composition of top universities the same? In this review, these questions are addressed based on physics. Although size matters, higher ranks do not correlate with bigger sizes. The ... Full text Cite

Energy theory of periodic economic growth

Journal article International Journal of Energy Research · June 10, 2020 Featured Publication This article shows that the sudden end of economic expansion (movement, wealth) emerges as a natural, physical feature of the spreading movement, which has access to power (money), freedom to morph, and power storage (savings) for future movement on even g ... Full text Cite

Discipline in thermodynamics

Journal article Energies · May 1, 2020 Featured Publication Thermodynamics is a discipline, with unambiguous concepts, words, laws and usefulness. Today it is in danger of becoming a Tower of Babel. Its key words are being pasted brazenly on new concepts, to promote them with no respect for their proper meaning. In ... Full text Cite

Freedom and evolution: Hierarchy in nature, society and science

Book · December 6, 2019 Featured Publication The book begins with familiar designs found all around and inside us (such as the 'trees' of river basins, human lungs, blood and city traffic). It then shows how all flow systems are driven by power from natural engines everywhere, and how they are endles ... Full text Cite

Why the Days Seem Shorter as We Get Older

Journal article European Review · May 1, 2019 Featured Publication Why does it feel that the time passes faster as we get older? What is the physical basis for the impression that some days are slower than others? Why do we tend to focus on the unusual (the surprise), not on the ever present? This article unveils the phys ... Full text Cite

Social organization: The thermodynamic basis

Journal article International Journal of Energy Research · October 10, 2018 Featured Publication Why do individuals come to live (to move) together, to organize? Here, we propose that organization is a reflection of the physics reality (bio and nonbio) that it takes less power (useful energy, fuel, food, and exergy) to move 1 unit of mass in bulk than ... Full text Cite

Evolution in thermodynamics

Journal article Applied Physics Reviews · March 1, 2017 Featured Publication This review covers two aspects of “evolution” in thermodynamics. First, with the constructal law, thermodynamics is becoming the domain of physics that accounts for the phenomenon of evolution in nature, in general. Second, thermodynamics (and science gene ... Full text Cite

Economies of scale: The physics basis

Journal article Journal of Applied Physics · January 28, 2017 Featured Publication Why is size so important? Why are “economies of scale” a universal feature of all flow systems, animate, inanimate, and human made? The empirical evidence is clear: the bigger are more efficient carriers (per unit) than the smaller. This natural tendency i ... Full text Cite

The Physics of Life The Evolution of Everything

Book · May 24, 2016 Featured Publication An empowering new view of the nature of physics and the constant evolution of our physical and social world ... Cite

Why humans build fires shaped the same way.

Journal article Scientific reports · June 2015 Featured Publication Here we see why humans unwittingly build fires that look the same: edifices of fuel, as tall as they are wide. The pile of fuel is permeable, air invades it by natural convection and drives the combustion. I show that the hottest pile of burning fuel occur ... Full text Cite

Maxwell's demons everywhere: evolving design as the arrow of time.

Journal article Scientific reports · February 2014 Featured Publication Science holds that the arrow of time in nature is imprinted on one-way (irreversible) phenomena, and is accounted for by the second law of thermodynamics. Here I show that the arrow of time is painted much more visibly on another self-standing phenomenon: ... Full text Cite

Why we want power: Economics is physics

Journal article International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer · 2012 Featured Publication Full text Cite

The physics of spreading ideas

Journal article International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer · 2012 Featured Publication Here we show that the main features of citations history (S-shaped curve, increasing h index, decreasing m quotient) are predictable with the constructal law of how an idea flows over a populated territory. It flows in two ways: fast and long, as "convecti ... Full text Cite

Why the bigger live longer and travel farther: animals, vehicles, rivers and the winds.

Journal article Sci Rep · 2012 Featured Publication Here we show that constructal-law physics unifies the design of animate and inanimate movement by requiring that larger bodies move farther, and their movement on the landscape last longer. The life span of mammals must scale as the body mass (M) raised to ... Full text Link to item Cite

Climate change, in the framework of the constructal law

Journal article INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GLOBAL WARMING · 2012 Featured Publication Full text Link to item Cite

The constructal law origin of the logistics S curve

Journal article Journal of Applied Physics · 2011 Featured Publication The S curve is one of the most common phenomena in nature: the spreading of populations, tumors, contaminants, innovations, economic activity. Here we show that this phenomenon can be predicted entirely by recognizing in it a flow. The flow is not by diffu ... Full text Cite

The constructal-law origin of the wheel, size, and skeleton in animal design

Journal article American Journal of Physics · 2010 Featured Publication This paper shows that the emergence of body organs is predictable as an integral part of the design for moving animal mass more easily on Earth, in accord with the constructal law of design in nature: For a finite-size open system to persist in time (to li ... Full text Cite

The evolution of speed in athletics: Why the fastest runners are black and swimmers white

Journal article International Journal of Design and Nature and Ecodynamics · 2010 Featured Publication Here we explain a much avoided phenomenon in the evolution of speed sports for men and women: The world records in running tend to be set by black athletes and in swimming by white athletes. We show that this phenomenon is predictable from physics. Locomot ... Full text Cite

Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature

Book · October 16, 2000 Featured Publication This 2000 book explores the similarities between shape and structure in engineered and natural systems. ... Cite

Entropy generation through heat and fluid flow

Book · September 30, 1982 Featured Publication Good,No Highlights,No Markup,all pages are intact, Slight Shelfwear,may have the corners slightly dented, may have slight color changes/slightly damaged spine. ... Cite