IPMB100

I’m a regular reader of TIME magazine. Every year they publish an issue devoted to the TIME100: the hundred most influential people of that year. I thought I would do the same, except I’d focus on Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. So, below is a list of the one hundred scientists, physicians, engineers, and mathematicians who most influenced IPMB. I list them by impact, with the most influential first.

Like for the TIME100, selecting the list is not an exact science. It’s based on mentions in IPMB, numbers of citations, and my own personal opinions. I’m sure your list would be different, and that’s okay.

There are many brilliant scientists who didn’t make the list (for example: Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Rutherford, and Einstein). I tried to focus on people who had a direct impact on IPMB, rather than fundamental but not biomedical contributions to physics, so these and other luminaries were left off. 

The oldest scientists are Brown (born 1773) and Poiseuille (1797). The youngest are Basser, Goodsell, Hämäläinen, LeBihon, MacKinnon, Mattiello, Strogatz, and Xia (all more or less my age). I’m embarrassed to say there are only three women (Curie, Eleanor Adair, and Mielczarek; four if you count Abramowitz’s coauthor Stegun). Thirty three are alive today. Twenty are Nobel Prize winners (marked with an asterisk). I know ten personally (marked with a §). When I wasn’t sure about the year a scientist was born or died, I guessed and marked it with a question mark. There are many more I would like to honor, but I decided to—like TIME—stop at 100.

Enjoy!

1. Alan Hodgkin* (1914–1998) English physiologist who discovered how nerve action potentials work and developed the Hodgkin-Huxley model. 
2. Andrew Huxley* (1917–2012) English physiologist and computational biologist who discovered how nerve action potentials work and developed the Hodgkin-Huxley model. 
3. Godfrey Hounsfield* (1919–2004) British electrical engineer who invented the first clinical computed tomography scanner. 
4. Paul Lauterbur* (1929–2007) American chemist who developed a method to do magnetic resonance imaging using magnetic field gradients. 
5. Edward Purcell* (1912–1997) American physicist who co-discovered nuclear magnetic resonance, was author of the article “Life at Low Reynolds Number,” and wrote volume 2 of the Berkeley Physics Course titled Electricity and Magnetism. 
6. Allan Cormack* (1924–1998) South African physicist who developed much of the mathematical theory behind computed tomography. 
7. Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) German physicist and physician; First to measure the propagation velocity of a nerve action potential. 
8. Adolf Fick (1829–1901) German physician and physiologist who derived the laws of diffusion (Fick’s laws). 
9. Willem Einthoven* (1860–1927) Dutch medical doctor and physiologist who was the first to accurately measure the electrocardiogram. 
10. Marie Curie** (1867-1934) Polish-French physicist and chemist who discovered the elements radium and polonium; The unit of the curie is named after her. 
11. Jean Léonard Marie Poiseuille (1797–1869) French physicist and physiologist who determined the law governing the flow of blood in small vessels. 
12. Max Kleiber (1893–1976) Swiss biologist who established a ¾ power law relating metabolic rate to mass. 
13. Felix Bloch* (1905–1983) Swiss-American physicist who co-discovered nuclear magnetic resonance and derived the Bloch equations. 
14. Peter Mansfield* (1933–2017) English physicist who developed techniques used in magnetic resonance imaging, including echo planar imaging. 
15. Roderick MacKinnon* (1956) American biophysicist who determined the structure of the potassium ion channel. 
16. Erwin Neher* (1944) German biophysicist who co-invented the patch clamp method to record from single ion channels. 
17. Bert Sakmann* (1942) German physiologist who co-invented the patch clamp method to record from single ion channels. 
18. Tony Barker (1950) English engineer who invented transcranial magnetic stimulation. 
19. Robert Plonsey§ (1924–2015) American engineer who contributed to theoretical bioelectricity and wrote Bioelectric Phenomena and other books. 
20. Peter Basser§ (1959?) American engineer who invented the magnetic resonance imaging technique of diffusion tensor imaging. 
21. William Oldendorf (1925-1992) American medical doctor who first designed a computed tomography device. 
22. J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) British evolutionary biologist who published “On Being the Right Size,” an essay about scaling. 
23. Geoffrey West (1940) British theoretical physicist who derived a model to explain the ¾ power law of metabolism. 
24. George Ralph Mines (1886–1914) English cardiac electrophysiologist who demonstrated reentry in cardiac tissue. 
25. Bernard Cohen (1924–2012) American physicist who opposed the linear no-threshold model of radiation risk. 
26. John Wikswo§ (1949) American physicist who measured the magnetic field of a nerve. 
27. Arthur Winfree§ (1942–2002) American mathematical biologist who studied cardiac arrhythmias and wrote When Time Breaks Down: The Three Dimensional Dynamics of Electrochemical Waves and Cardiac Arrhythmias. 
28. Richard Blakemore (1950?) Researcher who discovered magnetotactic bacteria. 
29. John Moulder (1945–2022) Radiation biologist who debunked suggestions that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are dangerous. 
30. Kenneth Foster§ (1945) American bioengineer and expert on the biological effects of electromagnetic fields. 
31. Paul Callaghan (1947–2012) New Zealand physicist who wrote Principles of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Microscopy. 
32. Paul Nunez (1950?) Analyzed electroencephalography using mathematics, and author of Electric Fields of the Brain. 
33. Charles Bean (1923–1996) American physicist who studied porous membranes and reverse osmosis. 
34. John Hubbell (1925–2007) American radiation physicist who measured and tabulated x-ray cross sections. 
35. Arthur Compton* (1892–1962) American physicist who analyzed Compton scattering of x-rays. 
36. William Bragg* (1862–1942) English physicist who discovered the Bragg peak of energy deposition from charged particles in tissue. 
37. Mark Hallett§ (1943) National Institutes of Health neurophysiologist who helped develop transcranial magnetic stimulation and wrote, with Leo Cohen, the article “Magnetism: A New Method for Stimulation of Nerve and Brain.” 
38. Selig Hecht (1892–1947) American physiologist who performed a classic experiment on scotopic vision. 
39. Milton Abramowitz (1915–1958) American mathematician who, with Irene Stegun, coauthored the Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables. 
40. Knut Schmidt-Nielsen (1915–2007) Norwegian-American comparative physiologist and author of How Animals Work and Scaling: Why Is Animal Size So Important? 
41. Steven Vogel (1940–2015) American biomechanics researcher and author of Life in Moving Fluids: The Physical Biology of Flow and other books. 
42. Mark Denny (1951) American physiologist and author of Air and Water: The Biology and Physics of Life’s Media. 
43. Howard Berg (1934–2021) American biophysicist who studied the motility of E. coli and wrote Random Walks in Biology. 
44. Frank Herbert Attix (1925) Radiologist who is the author of Introduction to Radiological Physics and Radiation Dosimetry. 
45. Steven Strogatz (1959) American mathematician and author of Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos and other books. 
46. Frederick Donnan (1870–1956) British chemist who analyzed Donnan equilibrium. 
47. Gustav Bucky (1880–1963) German-American radiologist who invented the Bucky grid used in x-ray imaging. 
48. Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran (1922–2001) Indian physicist who, with A. V. Lakshminarayanan, developed mathematical methods used in computed tomography. 
49. Peter Agre* (1949) American molecular biologist who discovered membrane water channels called aquaporins. 
50. Eleanor Adair (1926–2013) American physiologist who studied the health risks of microwave radiation. 
51. Robert Adair (1924–2020) American physicist who studied the biological effects of weak, extremely-low-frequency electromagnetic fields. 
52. Yuan-Cheng Fung (1919–2019) Chinese-American biomedical engineer, and author of Biomechanics. 
53. Herman Carr (1924–2008) American physicist and pioneer in magnetic resonance imaging. 
54. Matti Hämäläinen (1958) Finnish physicist who was lead author on the article “Magnetoencephalography—theory, instrumentation, and applications to noninvasive studies of the working human brain”. 
55. Saul Meiboom (1916–1998) Israeli researcher who, with David Gill, co-invented of the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill pulse sequence used in magnetic resonance imaging. 
56. Oskar Klein (1894–1977) Swedish physicist who, with Japanese physicist Yoshio Nishina, developed the Klein-Nishina formula for Compton scattering of x-rays. 
57. Chad Calland (1934–1972) Medical doctor, kidney transplant patient, and author of the paper “Iatrogenic Problems in End-Stage Renal Failure.” 
58. Walter Blount (1900–1992) American orthopedic surgeon who advocated for the use of a cane. 
59. Albert Bartlett (1923–2013) American physicist and author of The Essential Exponential! For the Future of Our Planet. 
60. Pierre Auger (1899–1993) French physicist who studied the emission of Auger electrons. 
61. Rolf Sievert (1896–1966) Swedish medical physicist who studied the biological effects of ionizing radiation; The unit of the sievert is named after him. 
62. Louis Gray (1905–1965) English physicist who worked on the effects of radiation on biological systems. The unit of the gray is named after him.
63. Richard Frankel (1943?) American researcher who studied magnetotactic bacteria. 
64. Frederick Reif (1927–2019) Austrian-American physicist who wrote volume 5 of the Berkeley Physics Course, titled Statistical Physics. 
65. Richard FitzHugh (1922–2007) Co-inventor, with Jinichi Nagumo, of the FitzHugh-Nagumo model of a neuron. 
66. Arthur Guyton (1919–2003) American physiologist and author of the Textbook of Medical Physiology. 
67. Leon Glass (1943) American researcher and co-author, with Michael Mackey, of From Clocks to Chaos: The Rhythms of Life. 
68. Ken Kwong (1948) Chinese-American nuclear physicist who studied functional magnetic resonance imaging. 
69. Seiji Ogawa (1934) Japanese biophysicist who studied functional magnetic resonance imaging. 
70. Jay Lubin (1947) National Cancer Institute epidemiologist who battled with Bernard Cohen over the linear no-threshold model and the risk of radon. 
71. Eugenie Mielczarek (1931-2017) American physicist and author of Iron: Nature’s Universal Element: Why People Need Iron and Animals Make Magnets. 
72. David Goodsell (1960?) American structural biologist and science illustrator who wrote the book The Machinery of Life. 
73. Philip Morrison (1915–2005) American physicist who was lead author on Powers of Ten. 
74. Henri Becquerel* (1852–1908) French physicist who discovered radioactivity; the unit of the becquerel is named after him. 
75. Wilhem Roentgen* (1845–1923) German physicist who discovered x rays; The unit of the roentgen is named after him. 
76. Bertil Hille (1940) American biologist and author of Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes. 
77. George Benedek (1928) American physicist who co-authored, with Felix Villars, the three-volume Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology. 
78. William Hendee (1938) Coauthor, with E. Russell Ritenour, of Medical Imaging Physics. 
79. John Cameron (1922–2005) Medical physicist and coauthor of Physics of the Body. 
80. Lawrence Stark (1926–2004) American neurologist and expert on the feedback system controlling the size of the pupil in the eye. 
81. Ernst Ruska* (1906–1988) German physicist who invented the electron microscope. 
82. Britton Chance (1913–2010) American physicist who developed biomedical photonics. 
83. Johann Radon (1887–1956) Austrian mathematician who developed the radon transform used in computed tomography. 
84. Alan Garfinkel (1944?) American researcher who analyzed cardiac restitution for controlling heart arrhythmias. 
85. Eric Hall (1950?) Author of Radiobiology for the Radiologist. 
86. Osborne Reynolds (1842–1912) British engineer who studied fluid mechanics; the Reynolds number is named after him. 
87. Bernard Katz* (1911–2003) German-British biophysicist and author of Nerve, Muscle, and Synapse. 
88. William Rushton (1901–1980) British physiologist who worked with Alan Hodgkin studying nerve conduction. 
89. Robert Eisberg (1928) Coauthor with Robert Resnick of Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles. 
90. John Clark (1936–2017) American bioengineer who worked with Robert Plonsey. 
91. Raymond Ideker§ (1942) American physiologist and medical doctor who studied the electrical activity of the heart. 
92. Denis LeBihan§ (1957) French physicist and medical doctor who developed diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, and worked with Peter Basser on diffusion tensor imaging. 
93. Ronald Bracewell (1921–2007) Author of Fourier Transforms and Their Applications. 
94. Robert Brown (1773–1858) Scottish botanist who discovered Brownian motion. 
95. Louis DeFelice (1940?–2016) Wrote Introduction to Membrane Noise. 
96. H. M. Schey (1930?) Author of Div, Grad, Curl, and All That. 
97. Warren Weaver (1894–1978) American mathematician and science administrator who wrote Lady Luck: The Theory of Probability. 
98. Peter Atkins (1940) English chemist and author of The Second Law. 
99. Yang Xia§ (1955) Oakland University physicist who studied the magic angle in magnetic resonance imaging. 
100. James Mattiello§ (1958-2017) Oakland University alumnus and American physicist who worked with Peter Basser and Denis LeBihan to developed diffusion tensor imaging.

Comparative Anatomy is Largely the Story of the Struggle to Increase Surface in Proportion to Volume

On Being the Right Size,
by J. B. S. Haldane.

J. B. S. Haldane’s essay “On Being the Right Size” is a classic. In the first chapter of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, Russ Hobbie and I quote it.

You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes.

Another line from the essay is nearly as famous.

Comparative anatomy is largely the story of the struggle to increase surface in proportion to volume.

We describe the interplay between surface and volume in Chapter 2 of IPMB

Consider the relation of daily food consumption to body mass. This will introduce us to simple scaling arguments. As a first model, we might suppose that each kilogram of tissue has the same metabolic requirement, so that food consumption should be proportional to body mass [or volume]. However, there is a problem with this argument. Most of the food that we consume is converted to heat. The various mechanisms to lose heat—radiation, convection, and perspiration—are all roughly proportional to the surface area of the body rather than its mass.

If ridding our bodies of excess heat is an important issue, then we need to increase surface area without increasing volume. A similar issue arises when getting oxygen to our cells. Our circulatory and respiratory systems are elaborate strategies to increase the area over which oxygen diffuses. This is a key concept where physics and physiology overlap.

You can read Haldane's essay in its entirety here. Below I quote part of it. Enjoy!

Animals of all kinds find difficulties in size for the following reason. A typical small animal, say a microscopic worm or rotifer, has a smooth skin through which all the oxygen it requires can soak in, a straight gut with sufficient surface to absorb its food, and a single kidney. Increase its dimensions tenfold in every direction, and its weight is increased a thousand times, so that if it is to use its muscles as efficiently as its miniature counterpart, it will need a thousand times as much food and oxygen per day and will excrete a thousand times as much of waste products.

Now if its shape is unaltered its surface will be increased only a hundredfold, and ten times as much oxygen must enter per minute through each square millimetre of skin, ten times as much food through each square millimetre of intestine. When a limit is reached to their absorptive powers their surface has to be increased by some special device. For example, a part of the skin may be drawn out into tufts to make gills or pushed in to make lungs, thus increasing the oxygen-absorbing surface in proportion to the animal’s bulk. A man, for example, has a hundred square yards of lung. Similarly, the gut, instead of being smooth and straight, becomes coiled and develops a velvety surface, and other organs increase in complication. The higher animals are not larger than the lower because they are more complicated. They are more complicated because they are larger. Just the same is true of plants. The simplest plants, such as the green algae growing in stagnant water or on the bark of trees, are mere round cells. The higher plants increase their surface by putting out leaves and roots. Comparative anatomy is largely the story of the struggle to increase surface in proportion to volume. Some of the methods of increasing the surface are useful up to a point, but not capable of a very wide adaptation. For example, while vertebrates carry the oxygen from the gills or lungs all over the body in the blood, insects take air directly to every part of their body by tiny blind tubes called tracheae which open to the surface at many different points. Now, although by their breathing movements they can renew the air in the outer part of the tracheal system, the oxygen has to penetrate the finer branches by means of diffusion. Gases can diffuse easily through very small distances, not many times larger than the average length traveled by a gas molecule between collisions with other molecules. But when such vast journeys—from the point of view of a molecule—as a quarter of an inch have to be made, the process becomes slow. So the portions of an insect’s body more than a quarter of an inch from the air would always be short of oxygen. In consequence hardly any insects are much more than half an inch thick. Land crabs are built on the same general plan as insects, but are much clumsier. Yet like ourselves they carry oxygen around in their blood, and are therefore able to grow far larger than any insects. If the insects had hit on a plan for driving air through their tissues instead of letting it soak in, they might well have become as large as lobsters, though other considerations would have prevented them from becoming as large as man.

One Hundred Books About Physics for Medicine and Biology

When I was in high school, I became intrigued by St. John’s College and their Great Books program. I had their brochure, which included a list of the books to read each year; the most famous works of western civilization.

In the spirit of St. John’s, below I list one hundred Great Books about physics applied to medicine and biology. Read all these and you will have obtained a liberal education in biological and medical physics. One book you won’t find on this list is Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. I’m going to assume you’ve already read IPMB and my goal is to suggest books to supplement it.

Where to begin? I’ll assume you have taken a year of physics and a year of calculus. Once you have these prerequisites, start reading.

1. Powers of Ten. First an overview that’s easy and fun. It provides an intuitive feel for the relative sizes of things. 
2. The Machinery of Life. Although I’m assuming you’ve studied some physics and math, I’m not assuming you have much background in biology. This book provides a gentle introduction to biochemistry. Plus, it has those wonderful drawings by David Goodsell. 
3. The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering. Remember: We seek insight, not just facts.
4. Physical Models of Living Systems. IPMB is about modeling in medicine and biology. Philip Nelson’s little book gets us started building models. 
5. The Feynman Lectures on Physics. I know, I know...you’ve already studied introductory physics, but The Feynman Lectures are special. You don’t want to miss them, and they contain some biology too.
6. Air and Water. Now we get to our main topic: physics applied to biology. Mark Denny’s book covers many topics found in the first half of IPMB.
7. Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology. This classic three-volume set covers much of the same ground as IPMB.
8. The Double Helix. To further strengthen your background in biology, read James Watson’s first-person account of how he and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. It’s a required text for any student of science, and is an easy read.
9. The Eighth Day of Creation: The Makers of the Revolution in Biology. After warming up with The Double Helix, it’s time to dig deeper into the history and ideas of modern biology. Physicists play a large role in this book, and it’s wonderfully written.
10. Biomechanics of Human Motion. Chapter 1 in IPMB covers statics applied to the bones and muscles of the body. It’s our first book that focuses in detail on a specific topic.
11. Structures, or Why Things Don’t Fall Down. A delightful book about mechanics, including some biomechanical examples. It’s one of the most enjoyable books on this list. Don’t miss the sequel, The New Science of Strong Materials.
12. Biomechanics: Mechanical Properties of Living Tissue. We need a book about biomechanics that treats tissue as a continuous medium. YC Fung’s textbook fills that niche.
13. A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of Elasticity. This book is long and technical, and may contain more material than you really need to know. Nevertheless, it’s a great place to learn elasticity. I’m sure there are more modern books that you may prefer. Skip if you’re in a hurry.
14. The Physics of Scuba Diving. An easy read about how hydrostatics impacts divers.
15. Life in Moving Fluids. Fluid dynamics is one of those topics that’s critical to life, but is often skipped in introductory physics classes. This book by Steven Vogel provides an excellent introduction to the field of biological fluid dynamics.
16. Vital Circuits. Another book by Vogel, which focuses on the fluid dynamics of the circulatory system. 
17. Boundary Layer Theory. This large tome may be too advanced for the list, but I learned a lot from it. Skip if you need to move along quickly.
18. Textbook of Medical Physiology. We need to get serious about learning physiology. This classic text is by Arthur Guyton, but any good physiology textbook will do. Not much physics here. The book contains more biology than we need, but physiology is too important to skip.
19. e, The Story of a Number. A gentle introduction into calculus and differential equations, and a great history of the exponential function, the topic of IPMB’s second chapter.
20. Quick Calculus. Yes, you already studied calculus. But we are about to get more mathematical, and this book will help you brush up on math you may have forgotten. If you don’t need it, move on. 
21. Used Math. Finish your math review with this outline of mathematics essential for college physics.
22. The Essential Exponential. It’s time to focus specifically on the exponential function and its properties, so important in biology and medicine.
23. A Change of Heart. Chapter 2 of IPMB mentions the Framingham heart study. Read the story behind the project.
24. On Being the Right Size. This is really an essay, but indulge me while I include it here among the books. J. B. S. Haldane is too fascinating of a writer to miss.
25. Scaling: Why is Animal Size so Important? Knut Schmidt-Nielsen’s study of scaling, a key topic in Chapter 2 of IPMB.
26. Lady Luck. Chapter 3 of IPMB requires us to know some probability, and Warren Weaver’s book is an engaging introduction.
27. Statistical Physics. The first few sections of Chapter 3 in IPMB develop the ideas of statistical physics in a way reminiscent of Frederick Reif’s volume in the Berkeley Physics Course.
28. An Introduction to Thermal Physics. For those who want a more traditional approach to thermodynamics, I recommend Daniel Schroeder’s textbook.
29. Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry. Biological thermodynamics overlaps with biochemistry. Any good biochemistry book will do. They all contain more detail than you need, but a biological physicist must know some biochemistry.
30. The Second Law. This delightful book by Peter Atkins will fill a hole in IPMB: a penetrating discussion about the second law of thermodynamics.
31. Div Grad Curl and All That. Chapter 4 of IPMB uses vector calculus, and there is no better introduction to the topic.
32. Random Walks in Biology. Howard Berg’s wonderful little book about diffusion.
33. The Mathematics of Diffusion. John Crank’s intimidating giant tome about diffusion. Mathephobes shouldn’t bother with it; Mathephiles shouldn’t miss it.
34. Conduction of Heat in Solids. Like the book by Crank, this ponderous textbook by Horatio Carslaw and John Jaeger presents all you ever want to know about solving the heat equation (also known as the diffusion equation).
35. How Animals Work. Another delightful book by Schmidt-Nielsen that considers comparative physiology, and topics in Chapter 5 of IPMB such as countercurrent heat exchange.
36. The Nuts and Bolts of Life. A colorful book about the first dialysis machine.
37. The Biomedical Engineering Handbook. Don’t read this encyclopedia-like multi-volume handbook in one sitting. Yet it provides dozens of examples of how physics is applied to medicine. Ask your library to buy this set and the next one.
38. Encyclopedia of Medical Devices and Instrumentation. The title should be Case Studies: How Physics is Applied to Medicine.
39. Plant Physics. IPMB doesn’t say much about plants, but physics impacts botany as well as zoology.
40. Nerve, Muscle, and Synapse. Bernard Katz’s excellent, if somewhat dated, introduction to all the electrophysiology you need for Chapter 6 of IPMB.
41. The Conduction of the Nervous Impulse. Read about the Hodgkin-Huxley model from the pen of Alan Hodgkin himself.
42. From Neuron to Brain. A modern introduction to neuroscience.
43. Electricity and Magnetism. This book by Ed Purcell is part of the Berkeley Physics Course. The first of three physics books about electricity and magnetism.
44. Introduction to Electrodyamics. David Griffiths’s text competes with Purcell’s for my favorite electricity and magnetism book.
45. Classical Electrodynamics. John David Jackson’s famous graduate-level physics text may be more electricity and magnetism than you want, but how could I leave it off the list?
46. Galvani’s Spark. A history of neurophysiology.
47. Shattered Nerves. A fascinating look at using electrical stimulation to compensate for neural injury. A history of neural prostheses.
48. Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach. The first, and probably easiest, of three bioelectricity textbooks.
49. Bioelectromagnetism. Jaakko Malmivuo and Robert Plonsey’s big book about bioelectricity.
50. Bioelectricity and Biomagnetism. Another big tome. Ramesh Gulrajani’s alternative to Malmivuo and Plonsey.
51. The Art of Electronics. In order to understand voltage clamping and other electrophysiological methods, you need to know some electronics. This book is my favorite introduction to the topic. 
52. Mathematical Handbook of Formulas and Tables. Chapter 6 contains lots of mathematics, and the next three books are references you may want. This Schaum’s Outline contains most of the math you’ll ever need. It’s cheap, light, and easy to use. Keep it handy.
53. Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs and Mathematical Tables. No one would sit down and read this handbook straight through, but “Abramowitz and Stegun” is invaluable as a reference.
54. Table of Integrals, Series, and Products. “Gradshteyn and Ryzhik” is the best integral table ever. Let the library buy it, but have them keep it in the reference section so you can find it quickly. 
55. Numerical Recipes. If you want to solve the equations of the Hodgkin-Huxley model, you need to program a computer. This book is great for finding the needed numerical methods.
56. Numerical Methods that Work. Forman Acton’s book is more chatty than Numerical Recipes, but full of insight.
57. Machines in our Hearts. Chapter 7 of IPMB examines the heart. Read this history of pacemakers and defibrillators to put it all in perspective.
58. Cardiac Electrophysiology: From Cell to Bedside. This multi-author, multi-edition work contains everything you always wanted to know about the electrical properties of the heart, but were afraid to ask.
59. Cardiac Bioelectric Therapy. Another multi-author collection, with several excellent chapters about the bidomain model.
60. When Time Breaks Down. Art Winfree’s unique analysis of the electrical properties of the heart.
61. Electric Fields of the Brain. Paul Nunez’s book about the electroencephalogram from the perspective of a physicist.
62. Iron, Nature’s Universal Element. Why people need iron and animals make magnets.
63. The Spark of Life. An accessible introduction to electrophysiology and ion channel diseases.
64. Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes. The definitive textbook about ion channels, by Bertil Hille.
65. Voodoo Science. Some of the topics in Section 9.10 of IPMB about possible effects of weak electric and magnetic fields make me yearn for this hard-hitting book by Bob Park.
66. Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior. Chapter 10 of IPMB covers nonlinear dynamics. This beautiful book introduces dynamics using pictures.
67. From Clocks to Chaos. Leon Glass and Michael Mackey introduce the idea of a dynamical disease.
68. Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos. Steven Strogatz’s classic; my favorite book about nonlinear dynamics.
69. Mathematical Physiology. An award-winning textbook about applying math to biology.
70. Mathematical Biology. Another big fine textbook for the mathematically inclined.
71. The Geometry of Biological Time. A quirky book by Art Winfree, more wide-ranging than When Time Breaks Down.
72. Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences. Many of the ideas about least squares fitting discussed in Chapter 11 of IPMB are related to analyzing noisy data.
73. The Fourier Transform and its Applications. The Fourier transform is the most important concept in Chapter 11. Ronald Bracewell’s book is a great place to learn about it.
74. Introduction to Membrane Noise. Louis DeFelice’s book explains how to deal with noise.
75. Naked to the Bone. A historical survey of medical imaging.
76. Medical Imaging Physics. A book by William Hendee and E Russell Ritenour, at a level similar to IPMB but dedicated entirely to imaging. Also see its partner, Hendee's Radiation Therapy Physics.
77. Foundations of Medical Imaging. A big, technical book about imaging.
78. Theoretical Acoustics. Not much biology here, but a definitive survey of acoustics to back up Chapter 13 of IPMB.
79. Physics of the Body. This book discusses many topics, including hearing.
80. Musicophilia. An extraordinary book by Oliver Sacks about the neuroscience of hearing.
81. Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles. My choice for a modern physics textbook, with much information about the interaction of light with matter.
82. The First Steps in Seeing. Robert Rodieck’s incredible book about the physics of vision.
83. The Optics of Life. This masterpiece by Sonke Johnsen walks you through optics, examining all the biological applications. A great supplement to Chapter 14 of IPMB.
84. From Photon to Neuron. A study of light, imaging, and vision.
85. Introduction to Physics in Modern Medicine. Suzanne Amador Kane’s nice introduction to physics applied to medicine, covering many topics in the last half of IPMB.
86. Introduction to Radiological Physics and Radiation Dosimetry. Frank Herbert Attix wrote the definitive textbook about how x-rays interact with tissue, a topic covered in Chapter 15 of IPMB.
87. Radiobiology for the Radiologist. The go-to reference for how cells and tissues respond to radiation.
88. Molecular Biology of the Cell. The classic textbook of cell biology.
89. Radiation Oncology: A Physicists Eye View. Explains how to treat cancer using radiation.
90. The Physics of Radiation Therapy. Faiz Khan’s in-depth study of radiation therapy.
91. The Atomic Nucleus. An classic about nuclear physics, providing background for Chapter 17 of IPMB. You could replace it with one of many modern nuclear physics textbooks.
92. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. A fascinating study of how a women treated for cancer using radioactivity ended up providing science with an immortal cell line.
93. Strange Glow. How radiation impacts society.
94. The Radium Girls. This book is about women poisoned by radium-containing paint (lip, dip, paint). It reminds us why we study medical physics.
95. Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Physical Properties and Sequence Design. All you need to know about MRI.
96. Principles of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Microscopy. Paul Callaghan’s view of magnetic resonance imaging.
97. Echo Planar Imaging. Advanced MRI techniques.
98. Biological Physics. IPMB is not strong in covering physics applied to cellular and molecular biology. Here are three great books to fill that gap.
99. Cell Biology by the Numbers. I love the quantitative approach to biology.
100. Physical Biology of the Cell. How physicists view biology. 

Don’t see your favorite listed? Here’s my call to action: Add your recommendations to the comments below.

I didn’t end up going to St. John’s College and studying the Great Books. Instead, I attended a more traditional school, the University of Kansas. I loved KU, and I have no regrets. But sometimes I wonder...

Listmania! IPMB

Amazon used to have a feature called Listmania! You could make a list of up to 40 books that was visible at Amazon's website. Ten years ago I created a Listmania! list related to Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, reproduced below. Because the list is old, it does not include recent books (such as The Optics of Life) or books that I have discovered recently (such as The First Steps in Seeing). To learn about newer books, search this blog for posts labeled “book review.” Amazon has discontinued Listmania!, but you can still find the lists if you look hard. I miss it.

If you are interested in what I read for pleasure, look here.

Enjoy!

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Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology
Bradley J. Roth
The list author says: “Books that are cited by the 4th edition of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. These are some of the best biological and medical physics books I know of, and are books that have been useful to me during my career.”

Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, 4th edition (Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering) All the books listed below are cited in the 4th Edition of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, written by Russ Hobbie and me.

Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables [Applied Mathematics Series 55] A math handbook that has everything you'll ever need to know.

The 2nd Law: Energy, Chaos, and Form (Scientific American Library Paperback) I love this coffee table book about the second law of thermodynamics.  A painless way to introduce yourself to the subject.

Introduction to Radiological Physics and Radiation Dosimetry Classic in the Medical Physics field.

The Essential Exponential! (For the Future of Our Planet) This book explains why we devoted an entire chapter of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology to the exponential function.

Physics With Illustrative Examples From Medicine and Biology: Mechanics (Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering) A classic textbook.

Physics With Illustrative Examples From Medicine and Biology: Electricity and Magnetism (Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering) The second edition of the book has much the same content as the first, but the quality of the printing and illustrations is vastly improved.

Physics With Illustrative Examples From Medicine and Biology: Statistical Physics (Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering) Benedek and Villars were pioneers in biological and medical physics textbooks.

Random Walks in Biology The best book about the role of diffusion in biology that I know of.

Foundations of Medical Imaging Fine book to study imaging algorithms.

Introduction to Membrane Noise Great book on a little-known topic.

Air and Water One of my favorites. Written by a physiologist with an interest in physics (as opposed to Hobbie and I, who are physicists interested in physiology).

Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles My favorite modern physics textbook.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics (3 Volume Set) (Set v) What physics list could be complete without Feynman?

From Clocks to Chaos Excellent book to learn the biological and medical applications of chaos.

The Machinery of Life Wonderful picture book.  Great way to visualize the relative sizes of biological objects.

Bioelectricity and Biomagnetism Good, thick tome on bioelectricity.

Textbook of Medical Physiology The classic physiology textbook.

Radiobiology for the Radiologist Great place to learn about the biological effects of radiation.

Medical Imaging Physics Standard textbook in medical physics. Hendee is a pioneer in the field.

Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes, Third edition The bible for information about ion channels.

Machines in Our Hearts: The Cardiac Pacemaker, the Implantable Defibrillator, and American Health Care Learn about the history of pacemakers and defibrillators.

The Physics of Radiation Therapy The place to go to learn about radiation therapy.

Bioelectromagnetism: Principles and Applications of Bioelectric and Biomagnetic Fields Fine textbook on bioelectricity.

Powers of Ten (Revised) (Scientific American Library Paperback) Classic work describing how the world looks at different length scales. Required reading by anyone interested in science.

Electric Fields of the Brain: The Neurophysics of EEG, 2nd edition Great way to learn about the physics of the electroencephalogram.

Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach Standard textbook for a class in bioelectricity.

Numerical Recipes 3rd edition: The Art of Scientific Computing My go-to book on numerical methods.

Electricity and Magnetism (Berkeley Physics Course, Vol. 2) Best introduction to electricity and magnetism I know. Part of the great Berkeley Physics Course.

Statistical Physics: Berkeley Physics Course, Vol. 5 Great intuitive introduction to statistical mechanics.  Part of the Berkeley Physics Course.

Div, Grad, Curl, and All That: An Informal Text on Vector Calculus (Fourth edition) Need a little review of vector calculus? This is the place to find it.

Scaling: Why is Animal Size so Important? Great book on biological scaling.

How Animals Work Great physiology book. Quirky, but fun.

Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: With Applications To Physics, Biology, Chemistry, And Engineering (Studies in Nonlinearity) Best book for a first course in nonlinear dynamics.

Life in Moving Fluids: The Physical Biology of Flow (Princeton Paperbacks) Best book I know of on biological fluid dynamics. Not too mathematical, but full of insight. I recommend all of Vogel's books.

Vital Circuits: On Pumps, Pipes, and the Workings of Circulatory Systems Great for understanding the fluid dynamics of the circulatory system.

Lady Luck: The Theory of Probability (Dover Books on Mathematics) I often find probability theory boring, but not this book. An oldie but goodie.

The Geometry of Biological Time (Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics) Classic by Art Winfree, who was a leading mathematical biologists.  Be sure to get the 2nd edition.

When Time Breaks Down: The Three-Dimensional Dynamics of Electrochemical Waves and Cardiac Arrhythmias Winfree's classic on the nonlinear dynamics of the heart.

Cardiac Electrophysiology: From Cell to Bedside, 4e Comprehensive reference on cardiac electrophysiology.