# Help - Dune quote

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-dune-quote/545662>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 6, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-dune-quote/545662 "2010-07-06T02:17:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-dune-quote/545662/1 "2010-07-06T02:17:57Z")

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I need help recalling a sentence from Dune (first book) - it is too fragmented to Google I think.

It is something to do with a particular element limiting a system - if particular elements are nessacery, then the scarcest element acts as the limitation.

Can’t remember more than that - it is nice and pithy in the book.

Any questions please ask, I know this is obscure.

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**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-dune-quote/545662/2 "2010-07-06T04:37:22Z")

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Hydraulic despotism? [Hydraulic empire - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire)

the Wiki is different than the Herbert quote, Frank used it as an example in one of the dune books though. I believe he was talking about electricity and how so many people relied on it that the government could kill millions simply by turning it off.

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**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-dune-quote/545662/3 "2010-07-06T05:11:40Z")

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Kynes is probing Jessica’s knowledge of ecology at the dinner party that immediatley proceeds the Harkonnen invasion, she gets it right by describing the law of the minimum.

> **[Liebig's law of the minimum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig's_law_of_the_minimum)**
>
> Liebig's law of the minimum, often simply called Liebig's law or the law of the minimum, is a principle developed in agricultural science by Carl Sprengel (1840) and later popularized by Justus von Liebig. It states that growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor). The law has also been applied to biological populations and ecosystem models for factors such as sunlight or mineral nutrients.
> This was originally applied to plant or crop grow...

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**Author:** ![Zhen\_ka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecccb3/32.png) [@Zhen\_ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zhen_ka)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-dune-quote/545662/4 "2010-07-06T05:19:36Z")

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“It’s a rule of ecology,” Kynes said, “that the young Master appears to understand quite well. The struggle between life elements is the struggle for the free energy of a system”

The hydraulic despotism portion is from _God Emperor of Dune_.

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**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-dune-quote/545662/5 "2010-07-15T15:27:07Z")

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> [@outlierrn](#):
>
> Kynes is probing Jessica’s knowledge of ecology at the dinner party that immediatley proceeds the Harkonnen invasion, she gets it right by describing the law of the minimum.
> 
> [Liebig's law of the minimum - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig's_law_of_the_minimum)

I think that is it.

Thanks.