Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences

This classroom-tested textbook is an innovative, comprehensive, and forward-looking introductory undergraduate physics course. While it clearly explains physical principles and equips the student with a full range of quantitative tools and methods, the material is firmly grounded in biological relevance and is brought to life with plenty of biological examples throughout. It is designed to be a self-contained text for a two-semester sequence of introductory physics for biology and premedical students, covering kinematics and Newton’s laws, energy, probability, diffusion, rates of change, statistical mechanics, fluids, vibrations, waves, electromagnetism, and optics. Each chapter begins with learning goals, and concludes with a summary of core competencies, allowing for seamless incorporation into the classroom. In addition, each chapter is replete with a wide selection of creative and often surprising examples, activities, computational tasks, and exercises, many of which are inspired by current research topics, making cutting-edge biological physics accessible to the student.