BE/BIO 5: Introduction to Biomechanics
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 2:00-3:00, Spaulding 106
Instructor: Michael Dickinson flyman@caltech.edu
Teaching Assistant: weir@caltech.edu
Text: Comparative Biomechanics: Life’s Physical World
Steven Vogel, Princeton, 1st Edition
Schedule:
Lectures – M W F (2-3pm)
Monday & Wednesdays – standard lectures
Friday – lecture & discussion on assigned reading (required)
Office Hours (MD)– Wednesdays (3-5pm) 207 Keck
Grading: There will be 2 take home exams (33% each) and homework (33%)
Grading policy: Homework will be handed out (and posted) in class on Friday.
Homework is due by 5pm the following Wed. (deposit box outside Keck 207).
Each day an assignment is late results in a 10% reduction in score (compounded daily).
For take home exams, the daily reduction rate is 20%.
For these purposes, each day is defined from 5pm to 5pm.
Please take note, Keck Hall is locked at 5pm each day.
flight initiation
voluntary
Gwyneth Card
escape
Integrative Approach
sensory
systems
sensory
feedback
central nervous
system
mechanosensory
vision
motor
commands
musculoskeletal
system
olfaction
kinematics
& forces
dynamics&
environment
Behavior
Comparative Biomechanics:
The application of physics and engineering
to study principles of organismal design
A short history of biomechanics
Part 1. The Greeks
Socrates
469-399 b.c.
Plato
427-347 b.c.
Aristotle
384-322 b.c.
Good points:
fostered interest
in natural world.
Good points:
liked math
Good points:
liked experiments
Bad points:
hated experiments
Bad points:
hated math
Bad points: liked
hemlock drinks
Wrote: De Motu Animalium
Part 2. The Romans
Galen
129-200 AD
Physician to one of the 5 ‘good’ emperors, Marcus Aurelius
Good points: initiated use of ‘animal models’ in physiology
and medicine.
Bad points: Promoted wacky Hippocratian notions,
e.g. four body humours (blood, yellow bile,
black bile and phlegm)
Influence lasted until Renaissance.
As important in eastern Islamic culture
as western Christian culture
Part 3. The Italians
‘Bio-inspired’ engineering
Leonardo da Vinci
1452-1519
Good points: genius
Bad points: paranoid
genius
Direct combination of
engineering and biology
Length = L
Consider ‘simple’
animal/plant:
Mass x
gravity
Mass ~L3
strength
~ sectional area
Galileo Galilei
1564 -1642
Principle of
Similitude
Strength ~L2
Good points: great
scientist
Force/Area scales
with L.
Bad points: terrible
politician
big things need thick
Legs.
Modern concepts of static
forces and scale.
Conceived musculo-skeletal system as
collections of levers and gears:
Giovanni Borelli
1608-1679
Good points: father of
biomechanics
Bad points: grimaced a lot
e.g. ‘Borelli’s Law’
work to jump ~ mass x height;
therefore, height = work/mass.
muscle work ~ muscle mass,
therefore height is independent of size!
Part 4. The Germans
Stress lines in crane and femur
Carl Culmann
1821-1881
Hermann von Meyer
1801-169
Good points:
Collaborative team of engineer and paleontologist
Bad points:
facial hair style
Part 5. Other People
Darcy Thompson
1860-1948
Good points:
•Father of developmental
mechanics.
•Considered by many to be
greatest scientific writer in
English language
•Wrote On Growth and Form
Sydnie Manton
1903-1979
Good points:
•Combined study of phylogeny
with biomechanics
•Anticipated synthesis of
evolution and development
Edward Muybridge
1830-1904
Good points:
•Figured out horse gallop
•Anticipated importance of
high speed cine/video
•Bad points: Hung out at
Stanford
BE/Bio 5
Lecture #2: Stuff
Central question: how do things work?
Why is oak tree shaped like this?
Why is alder
shaped like this?
Why do/don’t trees fall down?
What is role of leaf
morphology?