# Teaching Electromagetism to Life-Science Students

I am going to be teaching an introductory university class on E&M and Modern Physics (from Coulomb's Law through Maxwell's Equations and optics, followed by a brief mention of quantum and relativity) to students in the 'life-sciences' (which, according to our department, pretty much includes any scientist who isn't a physicist or an engineer). Previously, this class has been taught more as a watered-down version of the more advanced class for physics majors. I'd like to be able to engage the students more, so I am looking for interesting (and maybe even fun) examples of life processes (could be from biology, neuroscience, chemistry, geology, etc.) that can be well explained, perhaps up to an approximation, by the physics of charges, magnets, and photons.

I'm already planning to do something with action potentials, MRI, the eye, and X-rays, but I'd like to see if there are other, less common examples. And since this is an intro class, and since I myself have very little prior knowledge of biology, etc. I am most interested in examples that depend only minimally on prior knowledge of either field.

I appreciate any input the community can provide.

• I would do something on "electricity and life". For example, talk about Galvani's experiments and how his explanation of electricity as animal force was overcome by non-animal studies on electrochemical cells (how batteries work). Then back to life aspect, show that electric voltage can be detected anywhere with oscilloscope and few probes. Talk about voltage variations between different points of human or animal body - due to friction or life processes such as heart activity. Positive and negative effect of voltage sources on human body. Jun 4 '20 at 22:48

When discussing electrostatic and magnetostatic experiments, also focus on the procedures necessary to get numerical values for $$\epsilon_0$$ and $$\mu_0$$. If you can, show/do the experiments (or pretend it and just do a fake evaluation) and calculate the constants so they can get a little bit of historical perspective on $$\epsilon_0$$ and $$\mu_0$$.
When you eventually lead them to the wave equation, convince them why this describes a wave and where/why the velocity pops up. Maybe some of them will find it enlightening when you let them do the calculation $$1/\sqrt{\epsilon_0\mu_0}$$ on there own.