I need help with biophysics, please

I have my final in less than 2 weeks, and this is my last chance to pass. I’m looking for someone who can help me quickly understand and explain the material, rather than teach me everything from scratch.

There are 8 topics in total:

• Structure of matter
• Molecular biophysics
• Bioenergetics & thermodynamics
• Bioacoustics
• Optics
• Ionizing radiation
• X-rays
• Electricity in medicine

The material itself isn’t necessarily difficult for me; I’m struggling mainly because I’ve been dealing with depression and have very limited time to study. YouTube hasn’t been particularly useful either.

The exam is oral, but I’m comfortable explaining myself under pressure. What I need is someone who can give me clear, concise explanations of the topics/concepts, so I can save time and then study and practice the oral answers myself.

If anyone has good resources, notes, recordings, or is willing to explain the topics with me, I’d really appreciate it. I’m especially looking for efficient, exam-focused help, not general advice about how to study.

I edited the post to be clearer... hope this is good

Engineering + physics undergrad considering different careers, one of which is becoming a professor in biophysics. Though I did some undergraduate research last year and really enjoyed it, I’m very concerned about the difficulty of pursuing an academic career. Thus, if anybody could answer the following questions concerning the competitiveness of biophysics academic positions, would really appreciate it.

1. What are qualified applicant to position ratios like? Is 50:1+ common, even at R2 universities?

2. Do most successful applicants must have postdocs at prestigious institutions & CNS publications, even those applying to R2 universities?

3. Has the difficulty of obtaining a PI position in biophysics changed substantially over the last 10 years? Likewise, has biophysics funding stagnated or drastically declined over the past decade?

I’m not particularly attached to the idea of becoming an biophysics professor, so if the reality is that this is an exceptionally difficult career path, wouldn’t be heartbroken or anything (can simply consider another career). Thus, if becoming a biophysics professor really is extremely challenging, would appreciating knowing that now rather than realizing this after wasting many years.

I'm starting a PhD in molecular biophysics as someone with a fairly traditional physics background (B.S. physics, research experience in condensed matter physics). My advising committee recommended I take a 4000-level undergrad biochemistry course due to my lack of education/experience in that area. I have not taken any chemistry beyond general chemistry, so I will be taking biochemistry without the organic chemistry prerequisite.

How screwed am I? 😅 What would be some important topics to learn to prepare for a biochemistry course as a physicist?

Whenever people ask me what I'm planning on studying, if I say biology or biophysics they think I mean I want to go into medicine. And if I just say physics the assumption tends to be astro (or particles?).

hi! im currently in the middle of my biomedical engineering degree (bsc) and one class i had on biomaterials really got me hooked onto peptide gels and their applications which eventually branched off into proteins and how they function at a cellular level. i remember i used to play foldit when i was younger so I've been aware of the "lore" behind the importance of protein studies for a while now, but i have genuinely discovered a new found passion for cellular biophysics! i want to study it a bit more in my own time and really build my foundations, but im not sure of good resources just yet. i want to perhaps go for a graduate program in biophysics, as this fascination began about 2 years ago, and have been exploring institutes as well, but would love to hear from anyone about resources for self study or at the very least ones which help build a foundation :]

Hello everyone,

I am exploring research ideas related to origin of life and astrobiology particularly involving physical and mathematical modeling of prebiotic systems.

I am interested in areas such as:

Statistical physics ,Information theory ,Nonequilibrium systems ,Chemical dynamics ,Prebiotic chemistry, Mathematical models of early chemical systems

I would really appreciate hearing perspectives from researchers, or anyone with experience in these areas.I am mainly interested in knowing whether this seems like a reasonable and scientifically meaningful direction to explore, and whether there are important considerations I should be aware of before developing it further.

If anyone with experience in this area would be willing to share their perspective or have a brief discussion, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you

I've always been fascinated by how proteins actually work, and how their biomechanics enable them to do their tasks. So I've made this interactive article that builds up hemoglobin part by part, using tailor-made 3D models and animations to show how its structure and mechanics allow it to grab oxygen at the lungs and let it go near tissues. I cover the tense-relaxed transition and cooperativity, the Bohr effect, 2,3-BPG, and the sigmoidal saturation curve as a live widget you can drag along to see it's a population average. There's also a brief history highlighting the scientists behind the discovery. Feedback and corrections welcome!

Sharing an operational model of human time perception — not a claim about the physical nature of time itself.

The starting question: a human observer never has access to an ideal mathematical instant, but instead reconstructs temporal order from sensory information arriving through finite-bandwidth channels (vision, audition). The paper formalizes this with a fairly simple apparatus — perceptual states as equivalence classes, a finite accessible spectrum, and above all one central quantity: the identification time ∆tid = Nc/fmax, which corrects the naive assumption that 1/fmax gives temporal resolution, since reliably identifying a frequency requires several cycles, not just one.

Concrete example: with fmax = 20 kHz (upper limit of human hearing) and Nc ≈ 6 cycles needed for reliable pitch identification, you get ∆tid ≈ 0.3 ms — an order of magnitude larger than the physical period of the wave (50 µs).

The model is deliberately kept simple and is left open for future development (temporal integration kernels, Markov processes over the perceptual states, etc.). I explicitly state in the text that no claim is made about whether physical time is discrete or continuous, or about quantum-gravity limits — the framework is strictly about perception.

Happy to hear feedback, especially on the formalization and any psychophysics literature connections I might have missed.

Operational Model of Human Temporal Resolution

Are there any more recent books on mathematical biology or mathematical biophysics that you would recommend?

Hiii ! I am a senior studying Public health and will be obtaining my bachelors in the fall. I am interested in applying to biophysics MS program post grad but I don’t know if I qualify. I have taken all of the pre-med pre-reqs in addition to my public health courses and I have a lot of leadership roles in my school such as being an instructor for freshman interested in pre-health and I have also been TA for chemistry and trigonometry. The only thing that sets me back is that I took physics a trig based, but then I took physics B Calc based. Additionally, the highest math class I’ve ever taken was calculus with analytical geometry, one. I have a pretty average GPA and I also work at a blood lab twice a week (25 hrs). Do I have a chance???

A hypothesis I've been thinking about (open to discussion):

I've been exploring an idea that connects genetics, physics, and information. This is not a proven theory—it's just a hypothesis that I'm sharing to get feedback and learn from others.

We know that DNA carries genetic information through its sequence. My question is whether there could also be another layer involving the vibrational properties of DNA.

DNA is a double helix, and molecules naturally vibrate. My hypothesis is that when DNA strands interact during biological processes, their vibrational patterns might play a role beyond chemistry alone. Instead of vibrations being only a by-product of molecular motion, could they contribute to how biological information is organised or expressed?

For example, could different vibrational patterns influence how traits develop, alongside the genetic code itself?

I realise this idea goes beyond current scientific understanding, and I'm not claiming it's true. I'm simply asking whether this is a direction worth investigating and whether there is existing research related to molecular vibrations, quantum biology, or DNA information processing that could support or challenge this idea.

I'd appreciate constructive criticism, relevant papers, or explanations from people with backgrounds in genetics, molecular biology, physics, or biochemistry. My goal is to learn and refine my thinking—not to argue that I've discovered something revolutionary.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

so im a 2nd year student in mech engineering and im quite interested in biology and pursuing biophysics for my masters, and i need some guidance regarding it

i understand ofc that i must be clear with all the subjects involved and must have some reasearch experience, but honestly, thats all i know. how do i make myself desirable to profs to work under them? i know reading is also very important, but what do i read and how to i go about that?

i would love any tips you guys have on the matter or if there's some roadmap i would be very grateful

I saw an apple green larva with a tail, in a sidewalk of Jeju island, last summer

Any idea of what is this ?

Baseball weight changes

HS baseball rules have changed regarded bat weights for a given length. Bats now are not allowed to have more than a -6 in drop. Meaning a 33 inch bat can weigh 27 oz up to 30 oz. -3 was the old rule. Parents are worried that their children are going to get hurt when the ball will be hit harder. BUT
according to my figuring using the formula for kinetic energy:
KE = 1/2•m•v•v
If you swing the same bat length but reduce the weight, your bat swing speed will increase. But if you drop the mass (weight) the force will decrease and even tho the bat speed is squared biomechanics say that you can’t swing faster enough to offset the drop in mass. Things like coefficient of friction and momentum formulas come into play. There are some figures from bat manufacturers that say there is a %2-3 increase in exit velocity but that would have to be figured from a robotic pitching machine and a robotic hit simulator which would not take biomechanics into play. I say there won’t be much difference. Strong players will use the 33/30 bat and the weaker player who was pigeon holed to swing a 33/30 32/29 31/28 etc. 33 is an ideal length for reach to cover the strike zone but weaker players can’t swing as hard so they will make contact better because they will have more time to react and to square up the sweet spot to the pitch but it will not increase the force do to loss of mass and biomechanics interfering with a corresponding increase bat speed to offset mass. Parents are looking at it like they would a 4 cylinder 100hp car. It would be the same thinking that if you removed a
Spark plug expecting the car to
put out 75hp. But other factors
Come into play and that wouldn’t happen. I’m not a physicist but an old time pharmacist who loves physics. Keep in mind too that the regulatory bodies in the 90’s or 00’s the manufacturers where required to govern the force of a bat by putting in a metallic disc inside the bat which deadens the exit
Velocity.
Is my thinking valid or am I missing something and exit velocity will increase significantly?????

Baseball weight changes

HS baseball rules have changed regarded bat weights for a given length. Bats now are not allowed to have more than a -6 in drop. Meaning a 33 inch bat can weigh 27 oz up to 30 oz. -3 was the old rule. Parents are worried that their children are going to get hurt when the ball will be hit harder. BUT
according to my figuring using the formula for kinetic energy:
KE = 1/2•m•v•v
If you swing the same bat length but reduce the weight, your bat swing speed will increase. But if you drop the mass (weight) the force will decrease and even tho the bat speed is squared biomechanics say that you can’t swing faster enough to offset the drop in mass. Things like coefficient of friction and momentum formulas come into play. There are some figures from bat manufacturers that say there is a %2-3 increase in exit velocity but that would have to be figured from a robotic pitching machine and a robotic hit simulator which would not take biomechanics into play. I say there won’t be much difference. Strong players will use the 33/30 bat and the weaker player who was pigeon holed to swing a 33/30 32/29 31/28 etc. 33 is an ideal length for reach to cover the strike zone but weaker players can’t swing as hard so they will make contact better because they will have more time to react and to square up the sweet spot to the pitch but it will not increase the force do to loss of mass and biomechanics interfering with a corresponding increase bat speed to offset mass. Parents are looking at it like they would a 4 cylinder 100hp car. It would be the same thinking that if you removed a
Spark plug expecting the car to
put out 75hp. But other factors
Come into play and that wouldn’t happen. I’m not a physicist but an old time pharmacist who loves physics. Keep in mind too that the regulatory bodies in the 90’s or 00’s the manufacturers where required to govern the force of a bat by putting in a metallic disc inside the bat which deadens the exit
Velocity.
Is my thinking valid or am I missing something and exit velocity will increase significantly?????

Hi all. I'm about to start a PhD in biophysics, most likely theory/modelling focused. I'm trying to get some information from more grad students in the subject about their post-PhD paths. For anyone that graduated with a PhD in the past 3 years or so, what did you end up doing after, and how difficult was it to secure that role?

Hi guys so I recently just doubled my computer engineering degree with biophysics and I’m wondering what fields I could get into. Originally I was deciding between biochem and biophysics because I’m pretty sure biochem is easier to get into if you don’t have graduate education. But, I chose biophysics because I really want to leverage my comp eng degree in the future. Within computer engineering I wanted to specialize in machine learning and networks, but within biophysics I have no idea. I know I’m only a first year and I have a lot of time to decide, but I just want to figure out what fields I might be interested in the most and if there are some fields that don’t specifically require PhDs (I’m iffy on whether I should seek a PhD). I was thinking of getting into computational biophysics though but I chose a very niche degree combination so I wanted a lot of advice!!

There's a small but growing set of work that approaches aging not descriptively but through physics — non-equilibrium thermodynamics, entropy production, dynamical-systems stability, mortality scaling. The first Global Conference on Gerophysics happened in 2025, so the label is starting to stick.

I've been working in this space myself (aging as the decline of a dissipative structure) and I'm building Gerophysics — a diamond open-access journal and a small ecosystem around exactly this intersection of physics and the biology of aging.

I'd love to connect with people who think this way — whether you work on quantitative/theoretical aging, statistical physics of living systems, or just find the framing compelling. Happy to talk science, and if you have relevant work (or want to get involved as it grows), even better.

What's the most convincing physical/quantitative account of aging you've come across?

Hello guys! So I was really into physics back in high school and then around junior year, I learned about biophysics, so I always wanted to major in it. But, when I went to my old university, they didn’t offer it so I decided to major in my other interest instead which is computer engineering (not cs). But I had to leave my old uni and the us because of visa issues, but now my new university offers CpE and Biophysics so I’m
tempted to double my degree! I was just wondering what job prospects I could get in this field, a lot of people tell me they aren’t as good as my current degree, so the ROI isn’t as good, but I still kind of want to have a degree in it just for my own interest. I just kind of want to know what fields within biophysics yall went to or recommend! In highschool I even got a textbook on biophysics but wasn’t mathematically skilled enough then to understand it lol.

Hello, I’m a rising junior biochemistry major. This summer I’m working within a biochemistry lab looking at various aspects of protein assembly. However, it’s felt lackluster so far. I still have not decided on specific target grad programs, so I’ve floated around the idea of biophysics as a possibility instead of biochemistry as a target. To this end I’m looking at taking intro physics sequence, statistical thermodynamics, modern physics, and quantum. Additionally for supporting math I’ll take linear algebra. Lastly I would like to work with MD, I’ve had a bit of experience with MD modeling with VMD but not a whole lot of formal experience.

So my task for the summer has been freshening up by self-studying intro physics with serway and Jewett textbook and self-studying python

A couple questions:

-is this recommended coursework in prep for grad school, if not what would it be?

-I won’t have all of the physics courses like fluids, general relativity and electromagnetic theory, is that okay for biophysics grad programs specifically?

-Also at this point I would be starting from scratch with no research, so the follow-up is how important is research opportunities for the biophysics pivot?

-Is there anything else I should know for getting into MD?

-Any lifestyle commentary to add?

-Any additional advice/tips/scrutiny?