Fall 2010: PHYS 390: Topics in Physics
TR 10:30-11:45am Robinson B 218
Professor Ernest Baretto
As long as there have been physicists, there have been physicists attacking the ultimate questions of ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything’. In the past few decades, the boundaries between classical biological and physical studies have blurred, and great strides have been made in applying tools from physics to understanding the machinery of living organisms from the sub-cellular level on up. These tools include theoretical, mathematical, and computational tools as well as experimental methodologies.
The objective of this course is to provide an introduction to the recent strides made in biological physics, with the concepts of energy, entropy, and random walks as unifying physics motifs.
Prerequisites: University Physics II, Calculus
Text: Biological Physics, by Philip Nelson, W.H. Freeman & Co. (2008)
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Fall 2010: PHYS 390: Topics in Physics
