Quotes by Jay Harman

"If you think of an egg, a common old hen's egg, which is a masterpiece of design, it solves every problem associated with it," he said. Humans, he said, usually solve a single problem when they design something, but then have difficulties related to the solution of this problem: by-products, waste, pollution, etc. The egg, however, solves all of its problems without creating any.
"It's designed in an incredibly streamlined way so that the hen can lay it in the first place; it's using the minimum amount of material, it gets maximum amount of strength; it's got a recirculation pattern inside that is thermally the most efficient shape you can get so that this egg doesn't lose heat when the bird goes off to eat; it's also the best circulation pattern for distributing nutrients; the egg is shaped in a way that if it rolls out of the nest it rolls back in; when the egg breaks and the chicken's hatched, then the entire egg shell is recirculated, it's recycled, it either goes back into the ground or other birds eat it to transform that shell grit into new shell for other eggs; there's nothing deleterious, there's nothing wasted; minimum of energy: I mean, this a perfect solution that fits a world that's sustainable, and that's biomimicry."

"Nature uses an organizing principle - it never uses a straight line," Harman said. "I've never seen any evidence anywhere of a straight line in nature - nothing. Your cardiovascular system: 60,000 miles long and no straight pipes, and it's far more efficient than anything humans have ever dreamt of."

"If you want to look for things to be done in a better way, you've got to look for who's the best teacher, who's done it best," "Well, nature's done it best: untold experiments with an open research budget. Nature's got it down."

“If fluids always tend to follow a particular path, is there a way to design equipment that takes advantage of this fact?”

“Nature has already solved the problem of friction reduction. To build more efficient industrial equipment, we must take full advantage of nature’s remarkable engineering solutions.”