Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences

Simon Mochrie has been on the faculty at Yale University since 2000 as a Professor Physics and of Applied Physics. For the last decade, his research has focused on the physics of living systems, during which period he also developed and taught the introductory physics for the life sciences course on which this book is based. In 2021, he was awarded Yale’s Dylon Hixon ’88 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences for his teaching of this course.Claudia De Grandi joined the Physics and Astronomy Department at University of Utah in 2018 as an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) of Educational Practice. One of her main roles is to implement and promote evidence-based teaching pedagogies in introductory physics courses and improve the teaching quality and inclusiveness of physics and STEM courses more broadly.  At the University of Utah, as well as previously as a Teaching Postdoctoral Scholar at Yale University, she has been working to reform the Introductory Physics curriculum for Life Sciences majors (pre-medical students and biology majors), both the lecture courses, as well as the laboratory ones. She was awarded the 2021-2022 College of Science Distinguished Educator Award.

• Chapter 1. Vectors and kinematics.- Chapter 2. Force and momentum: Newton’s laws and how to apply them.- Chapter 3. Energy, work, geckos, and ATP.- Chapter 4. Probability distributions: Mutations, cancer rates and vision sensitivity.- Chapter 5. Random walks: Brownian motion and the tree of life.- Chapter 6. Diffusion: Membrane permeability and the rate of actin polymerization.- Chapter 7. Rates of change: drugs, infections, and weapons of mass destruction.- Chapter 8. Statistical Mechanics: Boltzmann factors, PCR, and Brownian ratchets.- Chapter 9. Fluid Mechanics: Laminar flow, blushing, and Murray’s Law.- Chapter 10. Oscillations and resonance.- Chapter 11. Wave equations: Strings and wind.- Chapter 12. Gauss’s law: Charges and electric fields.- Chapter 13. Electric potential, capacitors, and dielectrics.- Chapter 14. Circuits and dendrites: Charge conservation, Ohm’s law, rate equations, and other old friends.- Chapter 15. Optics: refraction, eyes, lenses, microscopes, and telescopes.- Chapter 16. Biologic: Genetic circuits and feedback.- Chapter 17. Magnetic fields and Ampere’s law.- Chapter 18. Faraday’s law and electromagnetic induction.- Chapter 19. Maxwell’s equations and then there was light.

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