This book aims to demystify fundamental biophysics for students in the health and biosciences required to study physics and to understand the mechanistic behaviour of biosystems. The text is well supplemented by worked conceptual examples that will constitute the main source for the students, while combining conceptual examples and practice problems with more quantitative examples and recent technological advances.

A thoroughly updated and extended new edition of this well-regarded introduction to the basic concepts of biological physics for students in the health and life sciences. Designed to provide a solid foundation in physics for students following health science courses, the text is divided into six sections: Mechanics, Solids and Fluids, Thermodynamics, Electricity and DC Circuits, Optics, and Radiation and Health. Filled with illustrative examples, Introduction to Biological Physics for the Health and Life Sciences, Second Edition features a wealth of concepts, diagrams, ideas and challenges, carefully selected to reference the biomedical sciences. Resources within the text include interspersed problems, objectives to guide learning, and descriptions of key concepts and equations, as well as further practice problems. NEW CHAPTERS INCLUDE: Optical Instruments Advanced Geometric Optics Thermodynamic Processes Heat Engines and Entropy Thermodynamic Potentials This comprehensive text offers an important resource for health and life science majors with little background in mathematics or physics. It is also an excellent reference for anyone wishing to gain a broad background in the subject. Topics covered include: Kinematics Force and Newton’s Laws of Motion Energy Waves Sound and Hearing Elasticity Fluid Dynamics Temperature and the Zeroth Law Ideal Gases Phase and Temperature Change Water Vapour Thermodynamics and the Body Static Electricity Electric Force and Field Capacitance Direct Currents and DC Circuits The Eye and Vision Optical Instruments Atoms and Atomic Physics The Nucleus and Nuclear Physics Ionising Radiation Medical imaging Magnetism and MRI Instructor’s support material available through companion website, www.wiley.com/go/biological_physics

Designed for biology, physics, and medical students, Introductory Biophysics: Perspectives on the Living State, provides a comprehensive overview of the complex subject of biological physics. The companion CD-ROM, with MATLAB examples and the student version of QuickFieldTM, allows the student to perform biophysical simulations and modify the textbook example files. Included in the text are computer simulations of thermodynamics, astrobiology, the response of living cells to external fields, chaos in population dynamics, numerical models of evolution, electrical circuit models of cell suspension, gap junctions, and neuronal action potentials. With this text students will be able to perform biophysical simulations within hours. MATLAB examples include; the Hodgkin Huxley equations; the FitzHugh-Nagumo model of action potentials; fractal structures in biology; chaos in population dynamics; the cellular automaton model (the game of life); pattern formation in reaction-diffusion systems. QuickFieldTM tutorials and examples include; calculation of currents in biological tissue; cells under electrical stimulation; induced membrane potentials; heat transfer and analysis of stress in biomaterials.

Biophysics is a new way of looking at living matter. It uses quantitative experimental and theoretical methods to open a new window for studying and understanding life processes. This textbook gives compact introductions to the basics of the field, including molecular cell biology and statistical physics. It then presents in-depth discussions of more advanced biophysics subjects, progressing to state-of-the-art experiments and their theoretical interpretations. The book is unique by offering a general introduction to biophysics, yet at the same time restricting itself to processes that occur inside the cell nucleus and that involve biopolymers (DNA, RNA, and proteins). This allows for an accessible read for beginners and a springboard for specialists who wish to continue their study in more detail.

Each chapter has three types of learning aides for students: open-ended questions, multiple-choice questions, and quantitative problems. There is an average of about 50 per chapter. There are also a number of worked examples in the chapters, averaging over 5 per chapter, and almost 600 photos and line drawings.

This comprehensive and extensively classroom-tested biophysics textbook is a complete introduction to the physical principles underlying biological processes and their applications to the life sciences and medicine. The foundations of natural processes are placed on a firm footing before showing how their consequences can be explored in a wide range of biosystems. The goal is to develop the readers’ intuition, understanding, and facility for creative analysis that are frequently required to grapple with problems involving complex living organisms. Topics cover all scales, encompassing the application of statics, fluid dynamics, acoustics, electromagnetism, light, radiation physics, thermodynamics, statistical physics, quantum biophysics, and theories of information, ordering, and evolutionary optimization to biological processes and bio-relevant technological implementations. Sound modeling principles are emphasized throughout, placing all the concepts within a rigorous framework. With numerous worked examples and exercises to test and enhance the reader’s understanding, this book can be used as a textbook for physics graduate students and as a supplementary text for a range of premedical, biomedical, and biophysics courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It will also be a useful reference for biologists, physicists, medical researchers, and medical device engineers who want to work from first principles.

Increasing numbers of physicists, chemists, and mathematicians are moving into biology, reading literature across disciplines, and mastering novel biochemical concepts. To succeed in this transition, researchers must understand on a practical level what is experimentally feasible. The number of experimental techniques in biology is vast and often s