3 pm in Howey Physics Room N110
Georgia Tech School of Physics Colloquium
Michael Rubinstein
Dept. of Chemistry, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Physics of a Lung
(a simplified view of airway surface layer of a lung)
Is there any physics in biology? I will consider an example of a lung and demonstrate how the complexity of its structure and function can be understood on the basis of couple simple physical assumptions. Why do we need to breathe? What is the optimal way of getting oxygen into the blood stream (and CO2 out of it)? Why don’t we get infection from millions of bacteria we breathe in every hour? What happens when we do get sick? I will demonstrate how physics can help biologists understand the function of the lung on the molecular level and help doctors design better treatment methods.
