Two-Semester Intermediate Course Sequence in Physics for the Life Sciences

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The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering by Sanjoy Mahajan.

I like to paraphrase Richard Hamming and say “the purpose of equations is insight, not numbers.” Redish’s article reminds me of Sanjoy Mahajan’s book The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering. Both are superb.

In subsequent articles in The Physics Teacher (some already published, some in the works), Redish discusses skills every student needs to master.

• Dimensional Analysis 
• Estimation 
• Anchor Equations 
• Toy Models 
• Functional Dependence 
• Reading the Physics in a Graph 
• Telling the Story

I like to think that IPMB reinforces these skills. They certainly are ones that I try to emphasize in my “Biological Physics” and “Medical Physics” classes, and that Russ and I attempt to reinforce in our homework problems.

Screenshot of the Living Physics Portal.

Finally, a valuable resource for teachers of physics-for-the-life-sciences was noted during the Q&A: the Living Physics Portal.

The Living Physics Portal is an online environment for physics faculty to share and discuss free curricular resources for teaching introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS). The objective of the Portal is to improve the education of the next generation of medical professionals and biologists by making physics classes more relevant for life sciences students. We do this by supporting physics instructors in finding and creating curricular materials and engaging in community discussions with other instructors to improve their courses.

Although IPMB is not intended to be used in an introductory course, I believe many materials on the Living Physics Portal would be useful to instructors teaching from IPMB. Conversely, much of the information you find in IPMB, and on this blog, could be helpful to introductory teachers. 

If you’re preparing to teach a class based on Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, I suggest first looking at the materials on the book’s website, then scanning through the book’s blog (especially those posts marked “useful for instructors”), next reading Redish’s The Physics Teacher articles, and finally browsing the Living Physics Portal. Then you’ll be ready to teach physics for the life sciences at any level.