David Boal

Professor of Physics (emeritus)


Mail: Dept. of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada
Cell: 778/837-0070

This site contains teaching, research and administrative material, stored in PDF format.
My thanks to Alex Boal and Neil Alberding for helping to set up the original website in 1995.


Research

The theme of my research program is the cell's mechanical design and its evolution during the first two billion years of life on Earth. As an interdisciplinary project, it draws from theoretical physics, microbiology and paleontology in roughly equal fractions. Through computer simulations, the division cycles of structurally simple cells are predicted, with a focus on shapes such as diplococci and filaments. These predictions are tested against the measured division cycles of modern cyanobacteria that are cultured in my lab. Then, the cycles of microfossils more than two billion years old are analyzed and compared against the catalog of modern cycles to determine the likely structural components and functioning of ancient cell lines. Sources for the microfossil specimens include both public collections as well as my own material. An overview of the methodology can be found in a pair of summer school lectures given at Odense, Denmark.


Mechanics of the Cell

Aimed at senior undergraduates and graduate students in science and biomedical engineering this text explores the architecture of the cell's envelope and internal scaffolding. The analysis is performed within a consistent theoretical framework, although the reader can navigate from the introductory material to the results and biological applications without working through the intervening mathematics. The book can be used as a primary source in a one-semester course on cell mechanics, or as part of a more general course on biophysics (see PHYS 4xx). Published by Cambridge University Press .
Click here to access the website for the first edition (2002, out of print).
Click here to access the website for the second edition (2012).


Publications

Art


Teaching

Lecture notes and previous exams are available for the following undergraduate and graduate courses.

Physics 101: General Physics I

Physics 120: Modern Physics and Mechanics

Physics 211: Intermediate Mechanics

Physics 385: Quantum Physics

Physics 390: Introduction to Astrophysics

Physics 395: Computational Physics

Physics 415: Quantum Mechanics (scanned)

Physics 445: Statistical Physics

Physics 4xx: Biophysics: Mechanics of the Cell

Physics 810: Fundamental Quantum Mechanics (scanned)



Administration

Reports on university planning