Searching for Life’s Questions: Physics professor triggers life science students’ minds to appreciate learning physics

 

For many life science students, physics was a subject that incited much aversion and dread, as they recoiled at the thought of concepts so unlike the cellular and chemical material they were used to seeing and often thought of as irrelevant to their overall studies. Well aware of this stigma, Professor Katsushi Arisaka was set on proving them otherwise in his Physics 6B class, arguably what garnered him the most praise from his students and likely what earned him the 2010 Distinguished Teaching Award.

“In reality, anything in nature, including yourself or life, is based on the basic principle of nature, which is physical law…so that I like to teach in a class and once students realize…they started to learn by themselves so I just want to trigger students’ mind[s] to appreciate learning of physics,” said Arisaka, beaming widely with arms extended wide. He continued, “Teaching a motivated student is easiest. What excite[s] me to teach 6B is majority [of] students don’t really like physics and this is…Click Here to Continue Reading.