The term “scaling” refers to the way in which a system responds when its size changes. It asks the question, if I make this system bigger or smaller, what happens to the component parts, it outputs, its inputs, its processing speed or ability?
For example, a city can be thought of as a complex adaptive system. If the population of a city is doubled, does the resulting city have twice as many roads, twice as much crime, produce twice as many patents?
Or, if you scale the size of a business by employees by two, does it produce double the profits, own double the assets, etc?
Connections
There Is Likely A Universal Law That Defines Scale
Link Explanation: The linked note discusses how we see predictable scaling laws all over the place - in animals, cities, companies, etc. So while the current note defines the term “scaling”, the linked note elaborates to raise a question whether predictable, universal scaling laws exist.