NEXUS/Physics

NEXUS/Physics is an Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) class designed to

Focus on the development of general scientific competencies such as mathematical modeling and mechanistic reasoning;
Fit effectively into a standard curriculum for biologists and pre-health care students;
Be biologically authentic – help biology students understand important results they learn in their biology and chemistry classes that rely on physics.

Chapters

About

NEXUS/Physics was created by a team based at the University of Maryland as part of the National Experiment in Undergraduate Science Education (NEXUS) funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the NSF. For more details and a list of contributors, see the "About" tab.

Types of content

Examples and workouts are associated with readings and are listed in the detailed table of contents. Find problems at the end of chapters and from the problem tab above.

Readings
Examples (solved problems)
Workouts (activities)
Problems

Navigation tips

You can go through the NEXUS/Physics wiki either as a textbook or as a wiki — a collection of connected web pages with readings, examples, exercises, and problems. For details on the structure of the wiki, see the Navigation Tips page.

What's new

Reading materials for this wiki have been uploaded for the first 16 chapters, equivalent to 2 semesters of instruction. They cover topics including a review of basic math, kinematics and dynamics, properties of matter with fluid flow, energy including chemical energy, basic thermodynamics, electric currents, oscillations and waves, and models of light. (See the Chapter list at the left.)

The problem collection is complete. Solutions will become available on the Living Physics Portal in 2023. The problem collection is also available in an online, partially autograded commercial product, ExpertTA.

If you teach an IPLS course, consider our new online, interactive textbooks: Living Physics 1 and Living Physics 2. (A combined version will be available for Fall 2023.) We revised the material from this NEXUS/Physics wiki into a highly readable, coherent commercial text with integrated auto-graded questions, PhET simulations, and lots of authentic biological examples. Available from Top Hat.

Royalties from both commercial products go to AAPT to support the Living Physics Portal.

We much value comments, corrections, and suggestions. Send them to redish@umd.edu. If you are commenting on a specific page, please include the page's title in your email.

Useful/Fun links

PhET Simulations
DESMOS Graphing calculator
Veritasium
Physics Girl
A Capella Science
The Physics Classroom (good simulations)
Physics for the Modern World, Don Franklin (OpenStax textbooks)
OpenStax University Physics (vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3)