The Optics of Life: A Biologist’s Guide to Light in Nature.

An undergraduate biology major likely will escape from introductory physics having seen Maxwell’s equations and basic optics equations, having been exposed to the ideas of elementary quantum mechanics, and no doubt having picked up the idea that light is sometimes a wave and sometimes a particle, whatever that means. Skipping ahead a few years, the graduate student may end up specializing in how light affects photosynthesis rates or is used to remotely sense the oceans. A couple of years later the newly minted Ph.D. will be cast adrift in the postdoc world and told to select the proper instrument to measure light for a field experiment. In many cases, this person will have little more understanding of light and how it is measured than at the end of freshman physics. Only a fortunate few will have had the opportunity to attend a specialized summer class on environmental optics or learn...