Adam Cohen | Fall 2022 | Harvard University
This interdisciplinary course will explore the physical interactions that underpin life: the interactions of molecules, macromolecular structures, and cells in warm, wet, squishy environments. Topics will include Brownian motion, diffusion in a potential field, continuum mechanics of polymers, rods, and membranes, low Reynolds number flow, interfacial forces, electrostatics in solution. The course will also cover recently developed biophysical tools, including laser tweezers, superresolution microscopies, and optogenetics. Numerical simulations in Matlab will be used extensively.
Lecture Notes
Lecture 2: Brownian Motion
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Lecture 3: Stokes Einstein and First-Passage Problems
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Lecture 4: Langevin
Lecture 5: Harmonic Well, FCS and DLS
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Brownian Motion -- See p.46-65 of Doi & Edwards, "The Theory of Polymer Dynamics"
Static and Dynamic Light Scattering -- See p.275-283, 296-301 of "Soft and Condensed Matter Physics in Molecular and Cell Biology"
Assignments
Lecture 6: Brownian Ratchets and Molecular Motors
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Lecture 7 - 9: Molecular Motors
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Lecture 10 - 12: Electrophysiology
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Lecture 13: Dynamical Systems in Chem
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Lecture 14: Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis
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Lecture 15: Polymers
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Lecture 16: Rods
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Chapter 10 of "Physics of Continuous Matter: Exotic and Everyday Phenomena in the Macroscopic World" by B. Lautrup
Lecture 17: Membranes
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Lecture 18: Intermolecular Forces
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Chapter 1 of "Theory of Molecular Forces" By Margenau
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