Related papers: Integrating Evolutionary Biology into Physics Clas…
Analogies between evolutionary dynamics and statistical mechanics, such as Fisher's second-law-like "fundamental theorem of natural selection" and Wright's "fitness landscapes", have had a deep and fruitful influence on the development of…
Biological systems reach organizational complexity that far exceeds the complexity of any known inanimate objects. Biological entities undoubtedly obey the laws of quantum physics and statistical mechanics. However, is modern physics…
Energy concepts are fundamental across the sciences, yet these concepts can be fragmented along disciplinary boundaries, rather than integrated into a coherent whole. To teach physics effectively to biology students, we need to understand…
We present a simple physical model that recapitulates several features of biological evolution, while being based only on thermally-driven attachment and detachment of elementary building blocks. Through its dynamics, this model samples a…
The remarkable range of biological forms in and around us, such as the undulating shape of a leaf or flower in the garden, the coils in our gut, or the folds in our brain, raise a number of questions at the interface of biology, physics and…
A common assumption in evolutionary thought is that adaptation drives an increase in biological complexity. However, the rules governing evolution of complexity appear more nuanced. Evolution is deeply connected to learning, where…
A central goal of Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences (IPLS) is to prepare students to use physics to model and analyze biological situations, a skill of increasing importance for their future studies and careers. Here we report our…
This thesis, explores the quantum entanglement and evolution through both a geometric and dynamical perspective. The first part focuses on classical phase space and its central role in Hamiltonian mechanics, emphasizing the importance of…
Traditionally evolution is seen as a process where from a pool of possible variations of a population (e.g. biological species or industrial goods) a few variations get selected which survive and proliferate, whereas the others vanish.…
A priority of physics instruction is to help students make the connection between the formulae they think they are required to memorize and the real world in which they interact every day. If you ask students to describe a situation in real…
Deeper insight leads to better practice. We show how the study of the foundations of quantum mechanics has led to new pictures of open systems and to a method of computation which is practical and can be used where others cannot. We…
Biophysics is a subject that is spread over many disciplines and transcends the skills and knowledge of the individual student. This makes it challenging both to teach and to learn. Educational materials are described to aid in teaching…
Proteins are the common constituents of all living cells. They are molecular machines that interact with each other as well as with other cell products and carry out a dizzying array of functions with distinction. These interactions follow…
We analyze geometrical structures necessary to represent bulk and surface interactions of standard and substructural nature in complex bodies. Our attention is mainly focused on the influence of diffuse interfaces on sharp discontinuity…
The growth and dynamics of solid surfaces displays a multitude of power law relationships, which are often associated with geometric self-similarity. In many cases the mechanisms behind these power laws are comparatively trivial, and…
Improving the scientific literacy of non-scientists is an important goal, both because of the ever-increasing impact of science and technology on our lives, and because understanding science enriches our experience of the natural world. One…
Our conventional understanding of space-time, as well as our notion of geometry, break down once we attempt to describe the very early stages of the evolution of our universe. The extreme physical conditions near the Big Bang necessitate an…
A physical theory of the world is presented under the unifying principle that all of nature is laid out before us and experienced through the passage of time. The one-dimensional progression in time is opened out into a multi-dimensional…
While fields like Artificial Life have made huge strides in quantifying the mechanisms that distinguish living systems from non-living ones, particular mechanisms remain difficult to reproduce in silico. Known as open-endedness, we've been…
In complex systems, the interplay between nonlinear and stochastic dynamics, e.g., J. Monod's necessity and chance, gives rise to an evolutionary process in Darwinian sense, in terms of discrete jumps among attractors, with punctuated…