Physics of the Human Body / Edition 2

by Irving P. Herman

Overview

This book comprehensively addresses the physics and engineering aspects of human physiology by using and building on first-year college physics and mathematics. Topics include the mechanics of the static body and the body in motion, the mechanical properties of the body, muscles in the body, the energetics of body metabolism, fluid flow in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, the acoustics of sound waves in speaking and hearing, vision and the optics of the eye, the electrical properties of the body, and the basic engineering principles of feedback and control in regulating all aspects of function. The goal of this text is to clearly explain the physics issues concerning the human body, in part by developing and then using simple and subsequently more refined models of the macrophysics of the human body. Many chapters include a brief review of the underlying physics. There are problems at the end of each chapter; solutions to selected problems are also provided. This second edition enhances the treatments of the physics of motion, sports, and diseases and disorders, and integrates discussions of these topics as they appear throughout the book. Also, it briefly addresses physical measurements of and in the body, and offers a broader selection of problems, which, as in the first edition, are geared to a range of student levels. This text is geared to undergraduates interested in physics, medical applications of physics, quantitative physiology, medicine, and biomedical engineering.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319239309
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	01/10/2016
Series:	Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering
Edition description:	2nd ed. 2016
Pages:	953
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Irving P. Herman is Professor of Applied Physics in the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University in New York, NY. He received B.S. and Ph.D degrees in physics from MIT, where he was a Fannie and John Hertz Predoctoral Research Fellow. He then joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which he left in 1986 to join Columbia University. His main research areas have evolved from using lasers for separating deuterium and tritium isotopes, to following and inducing thin-film reactions, and, more recently, to analyzing nanomaterials, and also investigates the guided assembly of nanomaterials. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, held the Lady Davis Fellowship Visiting Professorship at Hebrew University, and was the Seidman Family Series Lecturer at the Technion. He was chair of his department for six years and director of the National Science Foundation MRSEC Center for Nanostructured Materials at Columbia for 12 years. He has also authored the monograph Optical Diagnostics for Thin Film Processing and over 150 papers in peer reviewed journals, and has three patents.

Table of Contents

Preface.- Terminology, the Standard Human, and Scaling.- Statics of the Body.- Motion.- Mechanical Properties of the Body.- Muscles.- Metabolism: Energy, Heat, Work, and Power of the Body.- Fluid Pressure, Fluid Flow in the Body, and Motion in Fluids.- Cardiovascular System.- Lungs and Breathing.- Sound, Speech, and Hearing.- Light, Eyes, and Vision.- Electrical and Magnetic Properties.- Feedback and Control.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: David R Bell, BS, MS, PhD (Indiana University School of Medicine-Fort Wayne)
Description: This the second edition of a book on the physics of the human body that was first published in 2006. It is an exceptionally voluminous, comprehensive, and detailed reference on where and how physics operates in and on the human body. It is enhanced with an extensive set of problem-solving exercises and appendixes describing multi-integrated physiological processes.
Purpose: The purpose is to provide descriptions and explanations of every conceivable aspect of where physics is involved in human physiological functions as well as how the physics of the external environment impacts the human body.
Audience: The author claims this book can be used as a major reference or as a standalone textbook in undergraduate or graduate courses for students in the fields of biomedical science, engineering, or biomedical engineering. However, its mathematical detail makes it most suitable for biomedical engineering students. The book is written by a member of the Columbia University engineering faculty and contains many elements outside the author's main areas of research and expertise.
Features: This is an impressive treatise providing mathematically detailed descriptions of physical processes that act in and on the human body. It is extensively referenced and supplemented with a number of appendixes, with their own bibliographies, that cover the multidisciplinary topics of pregnancy, aging, injury, disease, and death. Appendixes are devoted to the physics of sports and athletic tasks as well as the physics of biomedical measurements. The book is heavily slanted to musculoskeletal biomechanics and electrophysiology in comparison to classic physiology of organ systems, but it does emphasize modeling of human physiological systems. Numerous, valuable problems (some with answers) are provided to help students gauge their understanding. The book also employs numerous line drawing figures, many with extensive mathematical/engineering detail. A shortcoming of the book is that it often employs extreme, pedantic, and unnecessarily complex mathematical detail to explain many topics that have long been totally and accurately explained with simpler, clearer, and more concise paradigms in medical physiology textbooks. This makes the book much less useful for biomedical and medical students. Also, the basic physiology is often descriptive and occasionally erroneous.
Assessment: This is an expanded and improved version of this book. As a college course textbook it could be suitable for upper undergraduate or graduate biomedical engineering specialists. For other engineering and biomedical disciplines, it is best reserved as reference because of its comprehensive nature, attention to minute details, standalone appendix readings, and huge bibliographic listings. It is least appropriate as an explanatory textbook for biomedical or medical students because medical physiology textbooks do a comparatively better job in that area.

Doody's Review Service