claytonh4 said:
I'm thinking about majoring in bio at college next year; however, I was curious about what kind of sub specialties exist out there, beyond undergrad education. I see on the forum all the time, people talking about going into high energy physics, or condensed matter physics, or field optics, or particle physics- you get the picture. My question is, what do these equate to in the field of biology? What kind of specialised or deeply intricate areas exist in biological fields? I've heard of cellular and molecular bio for instance, but beyond that, all I know of biology is- biology. I don't hear it referred to in the same way as these physics areas go. Granted, this is PHYSICS forums, but if anyone who may be a grad student, or PhD, who knows of a wide field of opportunities could shed some light on the subject, it'd be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Any physics related to chemistry has a lot to do with physics. Condensed matter physics, thermodynamics and statistical physics are closely related to the theories of biology. The laboratory experiments often, if not usually, involve analytical chemistry. So many experiments in biology use optics and spectroscopy.
Modern biology is often just chemistry of complex systems. Much of physics is the chemistry of simple systems. There is no understanding the complex systems without understanding the simple systems. To be a good biologist these days, you have to be a good chemist. To be a good chemist, you have to be a good physicist.
There are a few topics in physics, not closely related to chemistry, that can be helpful in biology.
Classical mechanics are also useful in comparative anatomy. Although classical mechanics isn't really important in chemistry, it generally governs the anatomy of an organism. Many introductory textbooks in comparative anatomy start with scaling laws. Which is classical physics. Thermodynamics is important in understanding ecosystems. You have to understand heat. As seen in this forum, heat is more complicated then the public generally understands. So pay attention to heat.
High energy physics has almost no use in biology. This includes most particle physics. General relativity and cosmology have almost no use in biology. Special relativity is important only because of the role it plays in optics and radiation physics. However, the details of special relativity are not important. Nuclear physics up to nuclear decay is important, but not farther. You have to know about radioactive decay to understand experiments with tracers and geological dating. However, you don't have to know about isospin.
Quantum mechanics is important with regard to physical chemistry. Therefore, it is important in biology. However, quantum entanglement is not important yet in biology. If entanglement gets into biology, it will enter through some chemistry methods.
Particle accelerators are now being used in some chemistry experiments. Therefore, they will be used in biology experiments. However, this is part of the biochemistry topic. All sorts of physics creeps into biology. However, they generally creep in through the chemistry door.
Analytical chemistry is very important in biology. However, most of the methods used by analytical chemists were actually developed by physicists. Although the "wet chemist" had his or her day, spectroscopic methods now dominate analytical chemistry. However, analytical chemistry is very quantitative. So you have to understand the physics in a quantitative way.
Mathematics is important. Calculus is used in many physical calculations. Computers are very important in biology. So computer programming and numerical mathematics is useful. However, mathematics also gets into biology via the chemistry route.
To understand analytical chemistry, you have to understand physics. There are a lot of physical principles used in analytical chemistry.
If you are interested in biology, take chemistry as early as possible. However, introductory physics helps one with the chemistry. I would even suggest taking chemistry and physics together, but lighten the load with other courses. I would say that one physics course, one chemistry course and one English essay course would be a fine introduction to biology! If you take the chemistry and physics first, the introductory biology would be easier.
English essay is the most important subject and the hardest. Take it first. Understanding physics means understanding English. Even physics must take a back seat to writing. Literature not so much. However, literature is important in defining one as a person.
Psychology and sociology won't be important for biology. All the important psychology is done by physicists. I have several books on image analysis that would blow away Jung's gestalt.
The advanced physics courses are not that useful for biology. But advanced here means junior and senior level physics.
I have certain biases. So I my background may be helpful here. I have worked in physics and biology. So I have some experience.
I am a retired physicist. My PhD was in lasers, spectroscopy and solid state physics. However, most of the work that I have done afterwords had to do with biodetection.
My best work was developing a sensitive method of detecting bacterial endospores. It used fluorescence. I use fluorescence, absorption and Raman scattering for all sorts of biology techniques. I also used quantum mechanics as related to shot noise. Again, shot noise is a limitation of spectroscopy. I was really refining some chemistry methods.
I understand some chemistry better than some chemists. The physics helped me understand the chemistry. So it helped me get into biology.
My current hobby is fossil collecting and natural history. So I know something about paleontology and evolution. Some of my physics background has been useful there. However, the reason that it is useful is that it helps me understand chemistry. The structural analysis of dinosaurs often uses classical mechanics. The radioactive dating methods of course involve physics and geochemistry. These help me understand what I am looking at.
General relativity doesn't help me understand fossils. General relativity is important for certain things. It is interesting. I learned a little bit of GR. However, living things don't operate on the size scale where general relativity is important. Same for high energy particle physics.
