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What exactly is biophysics?
biophysics?
- Thread starter lwong
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It's a lot of molecular problems in interesting disciplines that aren't quite molecular genetics, classic neurobiology, or biochemistry that get lumped together. The common theme is that they are all very quantitative. What is and what isn't biophysics depends on who you ask. If you peruse the biophysical journals ToC, you'll see a lot of stuff coming from different angles.
What is biophysics: the web page.
What is biophysics: the web page.
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mjs said:
I know "physics" is in "biophysics", but I guess I still don't see what part of physics is involved. I'm still in undergrad and I have taken mechanics. Currently I'm taking electricity and magnetism. I'm finding it sort of hard to relate the concepts and applications to biological studies. More than anything, I think that chemistry, a branch of physics, (although some may argue that it's not separtable from physics) is really what's relevant to biological systems. So in your experience, when taking biophysics courses, is there more chemistry than physics involved?...(open to anyone else that has taken biophysics courses)
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lwong said:
In my experience, the lines between biophysics and chemistry may often be quite blurred. Biophysics often employs statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, reaction kinetics and dynamics, directly to biological structures. For example, modeling ion channel behavior using chemical kinetics and statistical mechanics. Or, using calorimetry to look at binding constants of metals to proteins. Or, employing physical techniques like X-ray crystallography and AFM to protein crystals or adsorbed DNA.
What it is clearly NOT is organic synthesis, inorganic synthesis and catalysis, or physical chemistry per se (e.g. studies of solid metallic hydrogen or heat capacities). In short, I guess you could call it physical chemistry, statistical/quantum mechanics, or solid state physics/optics, applied to macro- or meta- scopic biological structures (rather than to their micromolecular (e.g. the C atom, as opposed to the alpha helix)) components.
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I did biophysics for awhile, and most of what I did was... biophysics. It's hard to say if something is more chemistry or physics sometimes.
Take a peak at some of the abstracts and titles in a current release of the journal. That'll give you a better impression of what biophysicists do than our explanations. Just google any jargon that's too much for you.
Best title: Differential Labeling of Myosin V Heads with Quantum Dots Allows Direct Visualization of Hand-Over-Hand Processivity
Take a peak at some of the abstracts and titles in a current release of the journal. That'll give you a better impression of what biophysicists do than our explanations. Just google any jargon that's too much for you.
Best title: Differential Labeling of Myosin V Heads with Quantum Dots Allows Direct Visualization of Hand-Over-Hand Processivity
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lwong said:
Statistical mechanics is used a lot in biophysics. E & M is not very useful for the subject.
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If you're considering how difficult a course in biophysics would be, that will likely depend on the rigor of the mathematics and how well you typically have done in those courses. Programs and courses vary, obviously. Depending on what sort of course you're getting into, calculus I-III for partial derivatives, physical chemistry I/thermodynamics, physical chemistry II/quantum mechanics, university physics I & II, statistics, and knowing some biochemistry would probably help.
