Nonlinear Scaling of Systems
As a system grows, its costs, output, and dependencies may change at different rates. The history of artificial lighting illustrates how wider access can require new production and distribution systems, with new benefits and vulnerabilities.
THE IDEA
Nonlinear Scaling of Systems
Doubling an input does not necessarily double a system’s output. Capacity limits, shared infrastructure, and changes in how people use a service can alter the relationship. Artificial lighting illustrates how expanding access can change the system that supplies it.
Early Lamps (Pre-18th Century)
Lamps fueled by animal fat or oil provided limited light, often shared by people working close to a flame. Lighting depended on access to fuel and the work of maintaining individual lamps.
Whale Oil (18th–19th Century)
Whale oil linked household lighting to hunting, processing, and trade far from the home. Expanding fuel supply required substantial activity at sea without a proportional increase in the brightness of an individual lamp. Production and consumption became more separated.
Gas Lighting (19th Century)
Gas lighting changed distribution as well as illumination. Early installations supplied individual premises; centralized systems, associated here with Frederick Winsor, delivered gas through underground pipes. Users gained access to a shared supply while becoming dependent on its operation and maintenance.
Brighter, more consistent lighting extended the hours during which shops, factories, coffeehouses, and theaters could operate. A network could spread infrastructure costs across more users, but failures could also affect many premises at once.
Electric Lighting (Late 19th–20th Century)
Electric lighting removed the need for an open flame at each light source. Edison’s distribution system followed the utility model of central generation and delivery to customers. Electricity networks subsequently expanded through power stations, cables, and interconnected grids. Light could support 24/7 operation, although factories still depended on labor, machinery, and other resources.
Expansion required further work on materials, voltage standards, and distribution economics. It also changed public space and the visibility of activity within it. Schivelbusch’s phrase “glaring and shadowless light” captures one concern about illumination and surveillance.
The practical questions change with scale. A lamp requires fuel and maintenance; a utility requires generation, distribution, and coordination across many users. Wider access can enable activities such as 24/7 manufacturing while increasing exposure to failures in shared infrastructure.
When to use it
A startup growing from 10 to 50 employees reviews how people coordinate work. More staff may expose communication bottlenecks that additional hiring alone will not solve.
A city expecting population growth compares bus capacity, street congestion, land use, and other transport options before assuming that service can expand in direct proportion to population.
Adding more servers to a web application may hit database bottlenecks or reveal architectural flaws that require a complete redesign, rather than linearly increasing capacity.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
From Whale Oil to Grids: Scaling Light’s Infrastructure
Whale oil required a global hunting and processing industry, but light output was still dim. Gas lighting introduced central distribution, enabling city-scale nightlife but making households dependent on pipelines. Electricity scaled further with national grids, allowing 24/7 factory operations—yet also introduced risks of blackout and surveillance. Each step produced disproportionate changes in society compared to the mere increase in lighting capability.
Factory Productivity Leap with Gas and Electricity
Gas and electric lighting extended the hours available for factory work. Electric light also removed open flames from individual lamps. Greater output depended on staffing, machinery, power, and demand as well as illumination; the example shows changing constraints rather than a fixed productivity multiplier.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a system you are part of (a project, team, business) that recently grew in scale. What new constraints or capabilities emerged that were not just a proportional increase?
When have you assumed that doubling resources would double output, only to encounter surprising bottlenecks or multiplication of value?
What infrastructure—physical, digital, or social—did you need to build (or rely on) as your own endeavors scaled? How did that change your autonomy?
Often confused with
References
- Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century — Wolfgang Schivelbusch (1988)
- Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light — Jane Brox (2010)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Great Mental Models Volume 3 Systems and Mathematics