This textbook has its origins in a course that I began developing at Union College

in the mid-1980s to teach physics to life science students in a way that would interest

them and show the connections of fundamental physics to modern biology and

medicine. From my own research experiences and interests in biophysics, I know

that almost all areas of modern life sciences integrally involve physics in both

experimental techniques and in basic understanding of process or function.

However, I and many colleagues with whom I have spoken have been unhappy over

the years with published attempts to direct a textbook to this audience. Most such

texts are watered down engineering physics books with occasional added sections

on related biology topics that are easy to skip over or assign students to read on

their own.

As I set out to write this textbook, I had certain definite goals in mind. I wanted

to write a book that was truly directed at life science students, one that integrated

modern biology, biophysics, and medical techniques into the presentation of the material.

Believing in the less is more credo, I chose to omit certain standard topics that are

usually included in texts for this audience, while expanding on topics that have more

relevance to the life and biomedical sciences. From my experience teaching to these

students, I also wanted a book that would be shorter and could be fully covered in a

two-semester course. Although students at Union College and comparable institutions

taking this introductory course have all had some calculus, only algebra and trigonometry

are used in the main body of the text. At this level, I believe that calculus adds little

to the understanding of the material and can detract from focusing on the basic

physical ideas. However, I have sprinkled in optional boxed calculations that do use

some calculus where I felt they truly added to the discussion (averaging less than one

box per chapter). These “sidebars” can be omitted without any loss of continuity.

The order of topics for this text follows a more or less traditional sequence. An

exception to this is the presentation of one-dimensional mechanics through forces

and energy before introducing vectors and generalizing to motion in more than one

dimension. This allows students to focus on the physics concepts of kinematics,

forces, and energy without being distracted by the ideas of vector analysis.

Beyond the order of topics, the presentation of material is unique in that, wherever

possible, themes from biology or medicine are used to present the physics material. The

material speaks to life science students. Rather than optional sections at the end of occasional

chapters, life science themes are plentiful and integral to the text. The role of these

topics here is more fundamental, as can be gleaned from a list of some examples.

Jay Newman is the R. Gordon Gould Professor of

Physics at Union College where he has taught for

30 years. While studying for his PhD in physics at

New York University, he developed a keen interest

in biophysics and did a three-year postdoctoral fellowship

in the Biophysics Department of Johns

Hopkins University. Since joining the faculty at

Union College, Professor Newman has taught and

developed more than 15 different courses, led student

terms abroad in science research in Italy, and also

spent a year at Stanford University. The experiences

abroad with students stemmed from his previous

stays as a Visiting Professor in Italy, once in Pavia

and six times in Palermo.

His research has been on the structure, dynamics and interactions of biomolecules

using laser light scattering and other physical methods. He has

60 publications, many co-authored with some of the 30 plus undergraduate students

who have done research projects in his laboratory, and has received two grants from

the Research Corporation and five multiyear grants from the National Science

Foundation for both research and teaching.

About 15 years ago, he developed a special introductory physics course for life

science students at Union College, which was the basis for this text. The idea behind

the course and this book is to show the essential connections between physics and

modern life sciences. Motivating this new approach to an introductory course was

Professor Newman’s firm belief, developed over his early training and now reinforced

by almost daily news reports, that modern biology and medicine are becoming

ever more quantitative and dependent on an understanding of physics

fundamentals, methodology, technology, and modes of thinking. Building this bridge

is the purpose and goal of Physics of the Life Sciences.