Adding life to physics

Physical principles have always played a basic role in the processes of living. In particular they have provided the framework of physical medicine, and also of medical practice in general. In spite of this, physics only recently has become recognized as the basic science for courses in biology and medicine, and has won its place as a cultural subject as well. The failure of physics to gain general appreciation earlier in these fields was not due to any limitations of physics. On the contrary, it was a result of a number of factors and circumstances of which the following were among the more important. The earlier outstanding and obvious successes achieved by physics in the rapidly expanding mechanical world diverted the attention of physicists from the less apparent part being played by their science in biology and in medicine. There could be no doubt as to the importance of the applications of physics in engineering or as to the place of physics in the curriculum of a school of engineering. It was obviously a useful subject for any person to study as a part of his preparation to live in what came to be called the mechanical age. It followed quite naturally that the authors of textbooks in physics should draw their illustrative material largely from the engineering fields, since it was a required subject in all types of courses in engineering. For students in such courses the illustrations were interesting and quite appropriate, but they did leave the students in other fields with the feeling that physics, if not beyond them, was certainly not for them.

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