A theoretical physicist named Geoffrey West was studying population growth of various cities when he noticed something weird. Basically, every time a city doubled in population, there was an inevitable 15 percent increase in ... well, everything. The rate of crime, pollution, disease, good stuff like productivity and creativity, and bafflingly specific stuff like the speed at which people walk along sidewalks. Double the citizens, everything went up by almost exactly 15 percent no matter where he looked.
It's weird to think of human behavior as predictable. It's not like criminals read the latest census information, do some quick calculations and put on their murder gloves to go out and fill their quota. But it turns out that a lot of the things that annoy us about daily existence are governed by scientific laws and systems we're not even aware of.
-Cracked
