Physical Biology of the Cell

Physical Biology of the Cell is a textbook appropriate for a first course in physical biology or biophysics for either undergraduate or graduate students. It maps the huge and complex field of cell and molecular biology from the distinct perspective of physical biology. By organizing ideas and data based on proximity in physical biology space we can study topics that are not obviously related in cell biology space. This organizational principle is the central thesis of the book: the appropriate application of a relatively small number of fundamental physical models can serve as the foundation of whole bodies of quantitative biological intuition, broadly useful across a wide range of biological problems. The much-anticipated full-color Second Edition includes new features and resources and is available in a variety of e-book formats. Part I: The Facts of Life 1. Why: Biology by the Numbers 2. What and Where 3. When: Stopwatches at Many Scales 4. Who: "Bless the Little Beasties" Part II: Life at Rest 5. Mechanical and Chemical Equilibrium 6. Entropy Rules! 7. Two-State Systems 8. Random Walks and the Structure of Macromolecules 9. Electrostatics for Salty Solutions 10. Beam Theory 11. Biological Membranes Part III: Life in Motion 12. The Mathematics of Water 13. A Statistical View of Biological Dynamics 14. Crowded and Disordered Environments 15. Rate Equations and Dynamics in the Cell 16. Dynamics of Molecular Motors 17. Biological Electricity 18. Light and Life Part IV: The Meaning of Life 19. Organization of Biological Networks 20. Biological Patterns: Order in Space and Time 21. Sequences, Specificity, and Evolution 22. Whither Physical Biology?