Biophysics, being an interdisciplinary topic, is of great importance
in modern biology. This book addresses the needs of biologists,
biochemists, and medical biophysicists for an introduction to the
subject. The text is based on a one-semester course offered to graduate
students of life sciences, and covers a wide range of topics from
quantum mechanics to pre-biotic evolution. To understand the topics,
only basic school level mathematics is required.
The first chapter introduces and refreshes the reader's knowledge of
physics and chemistry. The next chapters cover various physico-chemical
techniques used to study biomolecular structures, followed by treatments
of spectroscopy, microscopy, diffraction, and computational techniques.
X-ray crystallography and NMR are dealt with in greater detail. The
latter half of the book covers results obtained from applications of the
above techniques. Some of the other topics dealt with are energy
pathways, biomechanics, and neuro-biophysics.