Handbook of Physics in Medicine and Biology

In considering ways that physics has helped advance biology and medicine, what typically comes to mind are the various tools used by researchers and clinicians. We think of the optics put to work in microscopes, endoscopes, and lasers; the advanced diagnostics permitted through magnetic, x-ray, and ultrasound imaging; and even the nanotools, that allow us to tinker with molecules. We build these instruments in accordance with the closest thing to absolute truths we know, the laws of physics, but seldom do we apply those same constants of physics to the study of our own carbon-based beings, such as fluidics applied to the flow of blood, or the laws of motion and energy applied to working muscle.