Physics of life the physicist's road to biology (Elsevier Science, 2007)
The purpose of the book is to give a survey of the physics that is relevant for biological applications, and also to discuss what kind of biology needs physics. The book gives a broad account of basic physics, relevant for the applications and various applications from properties of proteins to processes in the cell to wider themes such as the brain, the origin of life and evolution. It also considers general questions of common interest such as reductionism, determinism and randomness, where the physics view often is misunderstood. The subtle balance between order and disorder is a repeated theme appearing in many contexts. There are descriptive parts which shall be sufficient for the comprehension of general ideas, and more detailed, formalistic parts for those who want to go deeper, and see the ideas expressed in terms of mathematical formulas. - Describes how physics is needed for understanding basic principles of biology - Discusses the delicate balance between order and disorder in living systems - Explores how physics play a role high biological functions, such as learning and thinking
<I. General Introduction -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Physics of Life. Physics of Two Levels -- II. Basic Physics Concepts -- 3. Concepts and Numerical Reference -- 4. Basis of Classical (Newtonian) Dynamics -- 5. Electricity -- The Core of Reductionism Basis -- 6. Quantum mechanics -- 7. Basic Thermodynamics; Introduction -- 8. Statistical Thermodynamics -- III. The General Trends and the Objects -- 9. Some Trends in 20th Century Physics -- 10. From Simple to Complex Systems -- 11. Theoretical Physics Models; Important Analogies -- 12. The Biological Objects -- 13. What is Life? -- IV. Going Further with Thermodynamics -- 14. Thermodynamic Formalism and Examples -- 15. Examples of Entropy and Order/Disorder -- 16. Statistical Thermodynamics Models -- V. Stochastic Dynamics -- 17. Basic Probability Concepts -- 18. Stochastic Processes -- 19. Random Walk* -- 20. Stochastic Step Processes; Master Equations* -- 21. Brownian Motion, First Description* -- 22. Diffusion and Continuous Stochastic Processes* -- 23. Brownian Motion, Continuation* -- VI. Basic Macromolecular Applications -- 24. Protein Folding and Structure Dynamics -- 25. Basis of Enzyme Kinetics -- VII Non-linearity -- 26. General Introduction to Non-linearity -- 27. Oscillations and Space Variations* -- 28. Deterministic Chaos -- 29. Noise and Nonlinear Phenomena -- VIII. Applications -- 30. Recognition and Selection in Biological Processes -- 31. Brownian Ratchet, Unidirectional Processes -- 32. Neural System -- 33. Origin of Life -- IX Going Further -- 34. Physics Aspects on Evolution -- 35. Determinism and Randomness -- 36. Higher Functions of Life -- 37. About the Direction of Time -- 38. We are in the Best of Worlds; The Anthropic Principle
Includes bibliographical references and index