Physics of biological systems. From molecules to species (Q676671)

This book is the published record of a combined summer school and workshop held at the Krogerup Højskole in Denmark during the summer of 1995. It is intended to introduce biological physics (biophysics) to first-year physics graduate students and physics researchers who have no prior knowledge of the field. It is simultaneously intended to do the same for students and researchers in biology who have no special background in physics but who have some grasp of mathematics and computing. These goals are only partially met because the biological background which is supplied is, in many instances, insufficient for physicists who are unacquainted with biology and because mathematical results are too often presented without derivations or detailed explanations of their source. The topics examined include replacement of gels by microchips in DNA electrophoresis, protein folding and motion, motor proteins, structure of membrane bilayers, vesicle and cell shapes, microtubule dynamics, an introduction to brains and neurons, statistical mechanics of sensory signal processing, and micro- and macro-scale evolution. Each of the 15 chapters in the book, written by different authors, is a completely independent tutorial on one of these subjects. The book as a whole illustrates the well-known fact that biophysics, unlike physics, chemistry, or biology, is not a single coherent field which can be broadly defined in a few sentences. Biophysics is what results when a physicist studies an area of biology to which the methods of physics can be applied. This accounts for the tremendous range of unrelated topics, from DNA to evolution, which appear in the book. Which of them will appeal to the reader will depend on his or her individual interests.