Intermolecular and Surface Forces, Second Edition: With Applications to Colloidal and Biological Systems (Colloid Science)

Book Description

This book describes the roles of various intermolecular and interparticle forces in determining the properties of simple systems such as gases, liquids, and solids, of more complex colloidal, polymeric, and biological systems. The book provides a thorough grounding in theories and concepts of intermolecular forces, allowing students and researchers to recognize which forces are important in any particular system and how to control these forces.

Key Features
* Surface-force measurements
* Solvation and structural forces
* Hydration and hydophobic forces
* Ion-correlation forces
* Thermal fluctuation (steric and undulation) forces
* Particle and surface interactions in polymer melts and polymer solutions
* Contains worked examples, discussion topics, and more than 100 problems

Customer Reviews:

Great Service.......2007-10-08

The book was brand new and the shipping was fast.
Thank you for an easy transaction.

A great text with lots of information in a small package........2007-09-29

This text is perfect for the reader who can read graphs and diagrams. A picture is worth a thousand words and so are graphs and diagrams. This text is chock full of graphs with all the information that you may need for an undergraduate or graduate course. I love this book. Its an excellent reference.

Good book........2007-09-03

Was used for "intermolecular forces" class... Advanced, and I think, it could be useful for people who work with AFM.

Fantastic Book.......2005-07-23

If you want to learn about the title subject, this is a great intro book. And it's probably the most enjoyable theory book you are likely to own, if you purchase it.

Forces you know or not????.......2004-02-13

The above "reviewer" needs to learn the English language! What the hell is that guy trying to tell us? I'm glad the book is useful to the outdoors.

Book Description

t the heart of the universe is a steady, insistent beat, the sound of cycles in sync. Along the tidal rivers of Malaysia, thousands of fireflies congregate and flash in unison; the moon spins in perfect resonance with its orbit around the earth; our hearts depend on the synchronous firing of ten thousand pacemaker cells. While the forces that synchronize the flashing of fireflies may seem to have nothing to do with our heart cells, there is in fact a deep connection. Synchrony is a science in its infancy, and Strogatz is a pioneer in this new frontier in which mathematicians and physicists attempt to pinpoint just how spontaneous order emerges from chaos. From underground caves in Texas where a French scientist spent six months alone tracking his sleep-wake cycle, to the home of a Dutch physicist who in 1665 discovered two of his pendulum clocks swinging in perfect time, this fascinating book spans disciplines, continents, and centuries. Engagingly written for readers of books such as Chaos and The Elegant Universe, Sync is a tour-de-force of nonfiction writing.

Customer Reviews:

Heavy Science for Light Readers.......2007-09-15

What a fun book. Strogatz has managed to talk about the leading edge of mathematical modeling without a single equation! He uses a comfortable prose and never strays too far from the story of his research. The reader is treated to a view of the way that the world network of scientists organizes itself within areas of research and finds unions where research from one speciality can contribute to another. Who would have thought that the western power grid, the Internet Movie Database and the nervous system of a worm called C. elegans could be effectively modeled with the same operational principles.

sync sync .......2007-03-14

This book gave both nature and theoretical explanation of what sync is and how it might
happen. Of course, its raminifaction still need a lot of exploration. This book is a good start and definite a good read for scientific inquiring mind. Read it and you know if you sync with this book.

Sync: The pulse of creation.......2007-03-06

In his 1987 book Chaos, James Gleick noted that choatic systems produce periodic patches of order.

At that time and during that state of research, the answer to the question of why this should be so remained largely unresolved. And to be honest, after reading this book and learning about the sync or synchronicity of how fireflies light up the night in unison and how inanimate pendulums can come to swing in unison the question will be still be largely unresolved.

However, you will leave this book with some additional interesting food for thought.

Why do periodic patches of order emerge in choatic systems?

Well, one answer suggested seems to be that if that chaotic system produces periodic amounts of a like particle -- like an electron -- that those like particles can generally be relied upon to behave similarly. Then maybe it's the delicate calculus of these mutually constitued similar behaviors that helps give rise to the rise of order.

But maybe not...and such is the state of research into this important issue.

Just Fun Useful Knowledge.......2007-01-17

If you have any interest in science or how things work, then this book promises to be an interesting read.

Strogatz discusses such cool topics like Fireflies, clapping your hands, sleep cycles, and related history.

Once you read this book, you will instantly appreciate how many random things have order, and I guarantee that at some point in conversation you will bring up a point from this book - I do, often.

Not quite synched.......2007-01-12

An interesting book, but rather unfocused and not particularly convincing-- I think he tries too hard to see synch everywhere.

What Is Life?: with "Mind and Matter" and "Autobiographical Sketches"

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An Absolute Classic from a Great Thinker
Stimulating Reading
A physicist's essay on a topic he cannot know as a scientist, only as a human being
Pons Asinorum? It Wasn't Then !
A Classic

What Is Life?: with "Mind and Matter" and "Autobiographical Sketches"
Erwin Schrodinger
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521427088

Book Description

Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger’s What is Life? is one of the great science classics of the twentieth century. A distinguished physicist’s exploration of the question which lies at the heart of biology, it was written for the layman, but proved one of the spurs to the birth of molecular biology and the subsequent discovery of the structure of DNA. The philosopher Karl Popper hailed it as a ‘beautiful and important book’ by ‘a great man to whom I owe a personal debt for many exciting discussions’. It appears here together with Mind and Matter, his essay investigating a relationship which has eluded and puzzled philosophers since the earliest times. Schrodinger asks what place consciousness occupies in the evolution of life, and what part the state of development of the human mind plays in moral questions. Brought together with these two classics are Schrödinger’s autobiographical sketches, published and translated here for the first time. They offer a fascinating fragmentary account of his life as a background to his scientific writings, making this volume a valuable additon to the shelves of scientist and layman alike.

Customer Reviews:

An Absolute Classic from a Great Thinker .......2007-08-03

In "What is Life?" monograph, Schrodinger brilliantly enlightens us with the true concept of life science. He proposes what himself calls "a naive physicist's ideas about organisms." Years before the discovery of double helix structure of DNA, Schrodinger beautifully details how the huge volume of information is related to the structure of what he calls "aperiodic crystal" (what we currently call it "protein structure."

The ideas are still fresh and everybody who really wants to start the REAL and TRUE molecular biology must read this classic. It is astonishing to see how this great thinker and physicist had elaborated, very correctly and properly, to use the statistical tools in physics (statistical physics) to explain the fundamentals of life.

It is an absolute classic from a great legend. Please read and enjoy it.

Stimulating Reading.......2006-10-15

Schroedinger, one of the great physicists of the 20th Century, applied the knowledge he gained in his own discipline to analyze human life. Based upon lectures that he gave in the 1940s, this brief book contains Schroedinger's fascinating speculations on the nature of life, several of which have proven prophetic (including the discovery of DNA). The reader comes away with the joy of having shared in the workings of a great mind.

Perhaps the most impressive achievement of the book is that it can be readily understood by persons relatively untrained in science or mathematics.

A physicist's essay on a topic he cannot know as a scientist, only as a human being.......2004-12-19

I'm wondering why scientists are allowed to give their opinion as scientists about topics they know nothing about as scientists. The beginning of the title ("What is Life") sounds like if Schrodinger can claim anything about the difference between mind and matter as a pure consequence of physics. Too bad, as the rest of the title might make you think that there will be some discussion about why and whether there might be a difference between mind and matter. What remains of mind when you stick to the physics? That would be a very nice question to think about, if only this was the topic of the book...but it's not what is done here.

Pons Asinorum? It Wasn't Then !.......2004-08-30

While I was reading the book I thought "this is pretty obvious stuff!" Then I began reminding myself that "If I see further, it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants."
I read the book because J.D.Watson said it was good in his book "DNA The Key To Life." He was right. The first chapter was fascinating.

A Classic.......2004-03-08

What is Life? is an absolute classic. Schrodinger felt that life must be explainable by physics and chemistry, yet seemed to violate the normal behavior of entropy-- and he understood further that this was a remarkable wedge point to explore. He figured out the explanation: life is the result of evolution of genetic information, which selects for complex processes that by ordinary considerations would be very unlikely. He predicted that there must be a molecule capable of carrying the genetic information (incorrectly thinking it would be a protein.) His beautifully-written book was influential and timely. Within 4 years, Von Neumann elucidated the mechanisms involved in self-reproducing automata (illustrating his abstract discussion with a picture looking remarkably like DNA to the eyes of readers today); and within a decade, Watson and Crick grasped the structure of DNA. You should not read Schrodinger's book today as one of your first sources to understand life-- there has been remarkable progress in the 50 years since Watson and Crick-- but you should read it to gain appreciation for how science can be advanced when the time is ready and a wedge point, an apparent conflict between fundamental ideas, is analyzed.

The volume also includes another lecture by Schrodinger, Mind and Matter, which is historically interesting in another way. In Schrodinger's day, the state of understanding had not advanced to the point where it was possible to make as useful conjectures about the structure of mind as of life, and he accordingly felt "[mind] may well be beyond human understanding."

Readers interested in Schrodinger's book will also enjoy What is Thought?, published 2004. What is Thought? argues that mind must be explainable by computer science, that the fundamental issues are computational, and that there is again a wedge point: the question of how the workings of a computer, which are always purely syntactical, can correspond to meaning and understanding. The situation is parallel to the one that faced Schrodinger with respect to life in two respects: first, mind is the outcome of evolution, which has built thought processes that seem inconsistent with our standard science, and second, scientific research has advanced to the point where, if we focus on the wedge point, significant understanding is obtainable. What is Thought? brings to bear on the problem of mind core ideas from computational learning theory, complexity theory, and evolutionary computing, as well as molecular and evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and other areas. The result is a principled and concrete explanation, consistent with the vast array of available data, of how meaning, understanding, language, consciousness, and all the various aspects of mind arise from execution of an evolved computer program.

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At home in the universe, A New Proposal...

Proposals to Unanswered Questions

Fascinating Science Applicable to Evolution and Business

A fascinating look at self-organization

Fantastic and enlightening

At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity
Stuart Kauffman
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (Helix Books)

Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order

The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution

Emergence: From Chaos to Order (Helix Books)

ASIN: 0195111303

Amazon.com

The best treatment I have yet encountered about how order emerges naturally -- and possibly even necessarily -- out of chaos. Profoundly important, and considerably more informed than better-known pop-science treatments of chaos theory. Very highly recommended.

Book Description

A major scientific revolution has begun, a new paradigm that rivals Darwin's theory in importance. At its heart is the discovery of the order that lies deep within the most complex of systems, from the origin of life, to the workings of giant corporations, to the rise and fall of great civilizations. And more than anyone else, this revolution is the work of one man, Stuart Kauffman, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary pioneer of the new science of complexity. Now, in At Home in the Universe, Kauffman brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at this new science--and at the forces for order that lie at the edge of chaos. We all know of instances of spontaneous order in nature--an oil droplet in water forms a sphere, snowflakes have a six-fold symmetry. What we are only now discovering, Kauffman says, is that the range of spontaneous order is enormously greater than we had supposed. Indeed, self-organization is a great undiscovered principle of nature. But how does this spontaneous order arise? Kauffman contends that complexity itself triggers self-organization, or what he calls "order for free," that if enough different molecules pass a certain threshold of complexity, they begin to self-organize into a new entity--a living cell. Kauffman uses the analogy of a thousand buttons on a rug--join two buttons randomly with thread, then another two, and so on. At first, you have isolated pairs; later, small clusters; but suddenly at around the 500th repetition, a remarkable transformation occurs--much like the phase transition when water abruptly turns to ice--and the buttons link up in one giant network. Likewise, life may have originated when the mix of different molecules in the primordial soup passed a certain level of complexity and self-organized into living entities (if so, then life is not a highly improbable chance event, but almost inevitable). Kauffman uses the basic insight of "order for free" to illuminate a staggering range of phenomena. We see how a single-celled embryo can grow to a highly complex organism with over two hundred different cell types. We learn how the science of complexity extends Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection: that self-organization, selection, and chance are the engines of the biosphere. And we gain insights into biotechnology, the stunning magic of the new frontier of genetic engineering--generating trillions of novel molecules to find new drugs, vaccines, enzymes, biosensors, and more. Indeed, Kauffman shows that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws, that tissues and terra cotta evolve in similar ways. And finally, there is a profoundly spiritual element to Kauffman's thought. If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe. Kauffman's earlier volume, The Origins of Order, written for specialists, received lavish praise. Stephen Jay Gould called it "a landmark and a classic." And Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson wrote that "there are few people in this world who ever ask the right questions of science, and they are the ones who affect its future most profoundly. Stuart Kauffman is one of these." In At Home in the Universe, this visionary thinker takes you along as he explores new insights into the nature of life.

Customer Reviews:

At home in the universe, A New Proposal..........2007-04-05

In this book, Stuart Koaffman opens new doors to us. Through the theory of the chaos, proportions fractals and their networks boulinas, give an interesting speculation us on the origin of the life, the complex systems and the societies. It is hour to be on the awares and to try to focus to us in new horizons. This book took to him of the hand by these new horizons. It is hour to know our house in the universe...

Proposals to Unanswered Questions.......2006-09-16

Stuart Kaufman's At Home in the Universe is a lay redaction his scientific hypotheses from his Origins of Order, a rich, fascinating, sophisticated, and complementary set of hypotheses added to Darwin's theories of evolution. For the moment, at least, they are the promising fruit of speculative or theoretical biological hypotheses (with physics, chemistry, geology, paleontology, mathematics, game theory, and economics thrown in), but they go a long way to filling in many of the gaps that strict Darwinists seem content to ignore. And some of his hypotheses, he readily admits, are heretical.

One of the obvious problems, if not primary one, that Kaufman sets to answer, Is how can natural selection work, culling the fittest to survive, without something to act on? In other words, natural selection operates on the already existent (i.e., regressive engineering), not in the formation of the entity itself. Another problem is that 4 billion years, long as that is, is still not sufficient time for natural selection to have acted through a totally random, step-by-step process in determining today's survivors. Even 100 billion years would not be enough. Another problem is how could so many species have come into existence and failed to survive (99.9%), leaving a mere 100 million for the present, in the span of a mere 4 billion years (mathematically impossible on Darwin's theories alone).

The central theme of Kaufman's work is Self-organized Criticality, a scientific twist on the notion of irreducible complexity (from the Discovery Institute's lexicon, no less), where a minimal degree of inherent complexity in a subcritical-supercritical phase transition is what spontaneously orders the animate world and generates and sustains life in accord with other, as yet, unknown, but implicit laws. From the moment that a sufficiently critical diversity of molecules reached the ideal phase transition, life itself was "spontaneously generated" as inevitable, not by accident. Once life appeared, the acts of natural selection, adaptation, coevolution, evolution of coevolution, cellular, morphological, and physiological differentiation, ontogeny, niches, populations, stable cum-chaotic dynamics, etc., could operate, but in addition to forces beyond natural selection. And while speculative, apparently many scientists share Kaufman's intuitions, inferences, and insights.

But the "other" force or forces is not mystical, much less divine, even if they may be truly awesome. Rather, it is in the nature of the universe, and more particularly in our evolving earth, that these implicit laws work in tandem with Darwin's laws. At this point, these laws are posited from the empirical knowledge we do have, but have not yet demonstrated in the scientific manner to make them even hypotheses. But Kaufman's speculative biology is not a whimsical or arbitrary metaphysics, but logical inferences based on laws and facts already in place. Having done the easy work (thinking the notions of what these other general laws of nature must be like), now science must work in earnest to confirm or reject his speculative hypotheses.

The key word and concept throughout this humorous, heady, and exacting exposition is "complexity" and within the manifold complexities of lives, environments, and mutually intersecting dynamics is a spontaneous order that arises "for free" that in turn sustains stable and steady systems just at the subcritical-supercrticial phase transition (e.g., horizon, or "edge of chaos"). Another key word and concept is "dynamic." Steady-state and homeostasis are often thought of as a static plateau, but that is mistaken, as such states are actually in a fluctuating dynamic at the phase transition between equilibrium (death) and disequilibrium (disorder). Indeed, on many different levels, living organisms are born, dwell, and die precisely at this phase transition between the subcritical (stasis, moribund) and supercritical (chaotic, disordered) states. And the key thesis is that order ("for free") is embedded in the delicate balancing act precisely at this phase transition.

Kaufman extrapolates some of these implicit biological laws and applies them to human cultural and technological advancement. The "fit" is remarkably uncanny, helping us to understand some of the dynamics of technological improvements (and diminishing returns), innovation, extinction, and spontaneity of the economy. Perhaps the most salient features are the concepts of "dynamic" and "spontaneous."

Moreover, if an analogy can be drawn from the biosphere and ecology to the social and political realms, the overwhelming preponderance of biological evidence screams complexity, diversity, and interdependence of organisms and their environments, which arise spontaneously and reciprocally to each other, in a constant dynamic that is vibrant, active, and always on the threshold of "chaos," but retains some stability through change. It is only those social and political forms that are "adaptive" that are socially and politically the "fittest," and democracy and market economies are obviously the most adaptive mechanisms to adapt to changing human needs.

Frederick Hayek addressed himself to these very issues over 50 years ago, and called the market economy and democracies "spontaneous" associations, in contradistinction to "planned" economies and governments. The former "adapt" to changing environments and circumstances, while the latter lack flexibility, and thus do not easily yield to adaptive mechanisms. "Planned" economies attempt to calculate rationally human desires, motivations, and needs in either an abstract or a priori fashion, then calculate the mode of production, the degree, and whether to accommodate, as if some "Absolute Human Mind" could anticipate all contingencies and changes by a simple mathematical formula. The problem is that bureaucrats are notoriously theory-laden and too calculating to include, much less advance, diversity (think Medicare Part D for "planned" absurdity). In practice, socialisms impede innovation and stifle ingenuity. With no means of adaptation, there is no "fittest," much less any mechanism to adapt to the actual dynamics of the world.

Communism's planned economy is an extreme case of an irrational calculus asserting what the government will allow, applying the lowest-common denominator as a criterion of sufficiency. We all know of the U.S.S.R.'s food lines, limited products, forced housing, inferior merchandise, and minimal labor investment. But even weaker forms of the rational calculus, such as socialism, does not do much better. At least their democracies allow policies to change, even if it becomes years for government to adapt to the new exigencies. Even the most socialized societies have "capitalist" outlets, to provide some barometer of social wants and meeting them. Social insurance makes sense on many fronts, but social or state "planning" of economics has rotted state and worker. Kaufman's biological analogies explain why.

Postscript: Kaufman's book is a provocative, challenging, and fascinating (sometime heady) read. Even if all of his hypotheses in the abstract are found to be untrue, at least he captures the reader's imagination, and asks the questions that most of us non-dogmatic Darwinians have raised for some time. In a time when the "easy" and "orthodox" are all too convenient for slipping under the rug, Kaufman's questions (and suggested answers) go the the very nexus of the difficulties. His suggested answers are at once perhaps too simple, on the other hand, perhaps too complex. What is refreshing, above all, is that he's not afraid to ask, and even less fearful of suggesting solutions. Thank gawd for the Sante Fe Institute, where brave and curious minds still ask questions.

Fascinating Science Applicable to Evolution and Business.......2006-05-17

Stuart brings the science of complexity and complex adaptive systems to a broad range of topics from evolution to business to learning curves. The book is masterly written to allow you to skim over the formulas without lossing the excitement or to dig into the technology to understand its broad application.

A fascinating look at self-organization.......2005-01-18

We see a great deal of order in living systems. Where does this order come from? Is it entirely from natural selection? The author says no. He explains that much of the order we see in the world is spontaneous, such as in the symmetry of snowflakes, and that much of the order needed for the origination of life and in living organisms is of this spontaneous nature.

Kauffman is making a non-trivial point here, as the extent to which spontaneous order is more important than selected order is not entirely obvious. While a snowflake is indeed an example of a system that is highly ordered as it gets synthesized, that's not true of, say, a solar system, in which short-lived bodies quickly depart the scene in favor of long-lived ones. It's clearly significant that disordered entities tend to be shorter-lived and unable to replicate.

The author then addresses theories of the origin of life. Could it have started with RNA? After all, replicating RNA could then produce the needed proteins. Kauffman says no. The amino acid chains one would need would be too long to replicate accurately enough (the "error catastrophe"). I tend to agree. Besides, RNA is awfully fragile (DNA is not fragile). And once one hypothesizes that RNA has a template to keep it safe, one's theory is that templates came first.

Of course, the "error catastrophe" is devastating if the minimum complexity of a living cell is rather large. Kauffman argues that this minimum complexity is indeed large, and that it is no accident that there are hundreds of genes in pleuromona, perhaps the simplest free-living (non-virus) organism.

Spontaneous order also refutes the argument of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that life could not have arisen on Earth because the chance of creating the 2000 functioning enzymes would be too small: 1 in 10 to the 40,000. Well, given that life does exist here, the Hoyle argument is almost certainly wrong anyway (with a chance that small, the odds would be overwhelmingly small for life to arise anywhere, ever, so the chance that the argument is wrong must be huge, since a correct argument might then give a much higher probability for life to appear).

The author then asks how we get the large polymers we need. After all, life is basically autocatalysis (that's what I was taught in the 1960s, and that's what Kauffman says as well). How does this big autocatalytic set get into gear? The author makes an analogy to putting connectors between random pairs of entities. At first the length of a connected chain will be small. But once the number of connections is about half the number of entities, the longest chain quickly becomes almost as large as the number of entities. That raises the question of how all these entities can interact, but Kaufmann says that having reactions on a substrate, effectively reducing the region to two dimensions, helps. So does having less water around.

We then get to the question of homeostasis. That requires plenty of order. Is there a way to get that order "for free?" The author says there is, and here is where he makes his most dramatic point. He points out that a network with 100,000 entities (call them "light bulbs") with two states each, has 10 to the 30,000 possible states. One might expect such a network to cycle through the square root of the number of states, or 10 to the 15,000. But it actually tends to cycle through the square root of the number of binary variables, which is only the square root of 100,000 or about 317. That is a huge amount of "order for free!" And it argues strongly for life's origination to be unsurprising. As Kauffman puts it, this changes life on Earth from being "We, the improbable," to "We the expected."

There's plenty more in this fine book. The author discusses order in ontogeny. And he has a chapter on the relationship between the diversity of species in an ecosystem and the diversity of organic molecules added from outside. And there's also plenty of material on "fitness landscapes."

One question that arises in this book is statistical: how long does a species tend to last? That has implications for the question of how long humans will last. It may not be that long. But that doesn't bother me, as long as we're replaced with something better. After all, I'm for progress!

Fantastic and enlightening.......2004-03-21

This particular book is a fantastic revelation and study of the boundary between order and chaos as it applies to the evolution of life, culture, technology and anything else in the universe. Its goal is to seek a universal law regarding the emergence of order in what we've traditionally considered unordered or random sets of fundamental stuff. For example, one of the observations that it makes is that evolution as Darwin revealed it is by itself not a sufficient explanation (scientifically) for why and how creatures like us could be here at all. In other words, natural selection is not sufficient to accomplish what life has accomplished in this world of ours. It needed the help of a very important other "force"... the life force, I might call it, and to which I've alluded many times in many forms through my writings. It's that special something about the nature of the universe that brings about the cooperation of systems, the autocatalytic closure which makes "hanging together" and "existing" some sort of "goal" deeply encoded in the nature of it all. You might be able to see how I might identify these ideas very closely with that term "lifetoward". What goal-oriented force brought life to be and continues to make life strive for ever more order and complexity? This book answers I think very well with: it's not a force, per se, but rather a fundamental aspect of the basic nature of the universe. To quote the book, "We the expected." We as living beings belong here and are an integral part of an incredibly awe inspiring process of creation of meaning and order in a world aching to give birth to it. The book closes with a nice summary, which much like a message I had posted to the lifetoward@yahoogroups.com list some time ago, extols the development of a new and enlightened faith, based on a realization of the wonder of the way the universe deeply is and how we are in it.

Book Description

The study of DNA is one of the most important areas of research in modern biochemistry and biology. It is an extremely complex field, and in recent years researchers have found that the application of nonlinear physics methods has led to significant increases in our understanding of the subject. This, the first book on the subject, examines both the experimental and theoretical methods which have been used to study the DNA molecule. Beginning with introductory chapters on DNA structure and dynamics, Nonlinear Physics of DNA goes on to discuss the more advanced recent work. This includes a comparison between linear and nonlinear approaches to the DNA molecule, a chapter devoted to the statistics of nonlinear excitations of DNA, and examples of the interpretation of experimental data on the dynamics of DNA in terms of nonlinear theory. Nonlinear Physics of DNA will prove essential reading for graduate students and researchers in biophysics and nonlinear physics as well as allowing biologists, biochemists and physicists to continue to develop nontraditional techniques of investigating the DNA molecule.

Binding and Kinetics for Molecular Biologists

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A Practical Guide to Quantitative Analysis in Biological Experiments

Binding and Kinetics for Molecular Biologists
James A. Goodrich , and Jennifer F. Kugel
Manufacturer: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
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Binding: Spiral-bound

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ASIN: 0879697369

Customer Reviews:

A Practical Guide to Quantitative Analysis in Biological Experiments.......2007-01-24

In the first sentence this books says: 'seeing is believing but measuring is knowing.' And that's a pretty good summation of the book with is generally concerned with making quantitative measurements of biological binding reactions. It is intended to provide a resource or teaching tool that explains quantitative measurements in a manner that can easily be applied to experimental research, classroom teaching and/or understanding the work of other scientists.

Having said that, it is important to also say that this is not a book of 'cookbook' experiments for a student. Instead it is a discussion of the types of experiments that might be run, and even more important on the analysis of the data obtained so that the experimental results can be clearly understood.

A companion web site kinetics.cshl.edu goes with the book and compliments the material presented in the book. The web site also has a collection of Web-based simulations that can be manipulated to visualize important concepts presented in the chapters. They afford a better understanding of binding and rate curves and fitting data.

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Good review, too many errors for 2nd edition
Great Review Book for Radiological Physics
Superb and essential for physics boards
All you need for physics for boards
Slight correction

Review of Radiological Physics
Walter Huda , and Richard M Slone
Manufacturer: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0781736757

Book Description

The "purple book" that helps residents and techs to prepare for the radiologic physics portion of board and registry exams is now in its Second Edition! Chapters outline key information and test the reader's understanding with board-type review questions, along with answers and rationale provided. Includes 500 multiple-choice questions. Topics covered include MRI, CT, US, mammography, radiography, fluoroscopy, nuclear medicine and more. New features include an 18% larger text, more test questions at the end of each chapter, new and revised illustrations, and an expanded glossary. New chapters include those on image quality and dose, digital imaging and PACS, computers and mathematics, and a separate chapter on CT.

Customer Reviews:

Good review, too many errors for 2nd edition.......2006-08-18

This is the second edition of this review text, yet there are numerous errors in the text and practice exams. As long as you know what is going on you can catch them all. Overall, useful in pointing out the trivia needed for ABR.

Great Review Book for Radiological Physics.......2005-07-20

If you are a medical physicist or equivalent studying for Part I of the ABR exam or equivalent, this is a must have book. The Q&A are relevant and explained well. Overall great value for the money.

Superb and essential for physics boards.......2004-07-04

Using Huda as my primary source along with multiple years of Raphex questions and a single set of San Antonio review questions, I was able to do very well on the physics boards.

I would strongly recommend purchasing this book as all the material it contains is HIGH yield on the physics boards. Well-organized, concise, and easy to read.

All you need for physics for boards.......2003-10-30

Huda, raphex and old questions are all you need. In that order. Even the fine print and tables in HUDA should be memorized.

Slight correction.......2003-08-18

There is a seperate chapter in radiation safety, however this information is also scattered throughout the text. I would have preferred for all the material to be stuck in one section. Other people may prefer differently, but I find it difficult to remember all the factoids and magic numbers. Maybe a compromise solution would be a quick index section at the end listing all the "must know" numbers and formulas.

Introduction to Molecular Biophysics (Pure and Applied Physics)

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Interesting topics, insufficient depth

Introduction to Molecular Biophysics (Pure and Applied Physics)
Jack A. Tuszynski , and Michal Kurzynski
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0849300398

Book Description

Molecular biophysics is a rapidly growing field of research that plays an important role in elucidating the mysteries of life's molecules and their assemblies, as well as the relationship between their structure and function. Introduction to Molecular Biophysics fills an existing gap in the literature on this subject by providing the reader with the modern theoretical tools needed to understand life processes from a physical viewpoint. The authors review numerous topics of relevance to biophysics, including peptide chains, DNA structure and function, cytoplasm, membranes, and motor proteins. Each chapter is richly illustrated and contains numerous examples, references, and problems that make this book useful as both an inclusive reference work and textbook.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting topics, insufficient depth.......2003-07-21

I am a cell biologist that was looking for a comprehensive biophysics resource. The description of the book and the table of contents gave me reason to hope that this was the book I was seeking. Unfortunately, despite the book's stated aim to foster dialogue between physicists and biologists, this book assumes far too much of its readers. There is no glossary. Several terms are introduced without being defined or illustrated. Some sections are extremely short, while others spend a considerable amount of time describing examples of questionable relevance to the stated topic. That said, I did find several passages of the book stimulating and thought provoking. I very much liked the description of dead cells being "at equilibrium." This book is appropriate for graduate students and higher. I don't think this book would be very useful as a course text.

Conformational Analysis of Molecules in Excited States

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Conformational Analysis of Molecules in Excited States

Manufacturer: Wiley-VCH
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0471297070

Book Description

A unique look at some of the hottest topics in photophysics and photochemistry today

The study of molecules in excited states has exploded over the past decade, providing new insights into conformational changes in organic molecules and opening up research opportunities for scientists and professionals in chemistry, physics, biology, medicine, and materials engineering.

Using conformational analysis as a unifying concept, this important new work provides readers with a cohesive and cutting-edge overview of this fascinating and challenging field. From conformational changes accompanying photoinduced electron transfer to elementary photophysical and photochemical processes in living systems, the most representative and challenging topics are carefully gleaned from the vast literature, highlighting major conceptual problems along with the relevant experimental techniques. Authoritative, detailed contributions from both experimentalists and theoreticians include coverage of:
* Conformational changes in intramolecular excited state electron transfer
* Conformational aspects of excited state proton transfer
* The novel topic of solute-solvent friction in chemical reactions
* Mechanisms and structural aspects of exciplex formations
* Conformational aspects of organic photochemistry
* Calculations of excited state conformational properties

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Mechanics of the Cell
David Boal
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521796814

Book Description

Biological physics, the application of physics to provide an understanding of biological phenomenas, is a burgeoning, new inter-disciplinary subject. This text explores the physics behind the architecture of a cell's envelope and internal scaffolding, as well as the properties of its soft components. The analysis is performed within a consistent mathematical framework, although readers can navigate from the introductory material to biological applications without working through the intervening mathematics. The book includes applications and extensions handled through problems at the end of each chapter. This text is aimed at senior undergraduates and graduate students in science and biomedical engineering.

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