How to Integrate Biology With Chemistry & Physics

Transcript

Hi, I'm Robin Higgins. And this is how to integrate biology with chemistry and physics. So, let's just take an example of a baseball player and let's say that he's getting ready to catch a ball that's coming pretty fast towards him. So, we can actually integrate chemistry, biology and physics with just this guy and how he catches the ball. So, let's say that it's being thrown at a speed of 80 miles per hour and it hits his hand. It's going to hit his hand with a force. And if you incorporate how fast it was going, for how long, we'll be able to figure out how much force it hit his glove with and that's physics. Additionally, this is a sphere, it's a baseball and so it's going to move through the air and hit less air particles and move faster, so it'll be more aerodynamic. And so all of those things are going to be physics as well. So, force, aerodynamics. And then, also if was a ball traveling, like thrown upwards, it would follow some kind of arc based on gravity. Alright, so let's move to chemistry. Well, first of all, the baseball is made of a lot of rubber which is synthesized by chemists in a vulcanization process. And it's also made of different fabrics and different strings, they're all made by chemists, so chemistry. And so, speaking of just the ball, his glove is also made of something. And let's say it's a synthetic glove that it meant that chemists has to synthesize what makes the best glove and what really reproduces that leather quality. And let's say that it's a hot day, so he's dressed in a bunch of synthetic fabrics. All of those fibers are made up of polymers, which were also all made in a lab. Not to mention all the chemicals involved in his blood and anything he may have eaten that day. But everything is going to be a chemical. So, finally, biology. So, let's say that when he catches that ball, he actually hurts his arm because he's being a little bit uncareful. Let's say that his muscle gets hurt. Well, the study of why that muscle is injured and the cells it takes to repair it, is going to biology. Additionally, let's say that he did eat some kind of energy bar for breakfast. Then how that bar digests and passed through his body, is also going to be biology. And so, you an really see that any situation you have in life is going to represent physics, chemistry and biology. And that's because we invented physics, chemistry and biology to explain what happens to us in life. So, really think of any example and see if you tie these three different fields of study to the example that you come up with at home. I'm Robin Higgins, and this is how to combine biology with chemistry and physics.

Robin Higgins graduated with a B.S in Chemistry from Emory University 2010, and has just recently received her M.S in Chemistry from the University of California Los Angeles.

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