Notes on teaching physics to biologists

Congratulations to Dawn Meredith and Joe Redish for tackling a long-overdue overhaul of physics for biologists (“Reinventing physics for life-sciences majors,” Physics Today, July 2013, page 38 ). I remember the frustration of teaching the course and feeling that the students had not gotten much out of it. For example, I explained what significant figures were, and the students continued to record as many figures as their calculators could generate.

However, the approach outlined in the article seems too abstract. I would base the topics on what a biologist or medical student would do in the laboratory. For example, how does a microscope work? That lesson involves the nature of light and how a lens works. What is the difference between weight and mass, as in space travel? Or between force and pressure, as with blood pressure? What is the difference between electrical current and voltage? A medical doctor once asked me what the difference is between volts and amps.

Physics professors have to constantly remind themselves that mathematics is a foreign language to most biology students. They are language oriented and can learn the names of countless chemicals and medicines that most physicists would not even attempt to master.

I think reinventing the course will be a long, hard task, but given its vital importance to society, it has to be done.