Why do I, as a Bio major, use calculus?
Derivatives can be used, for example, to:
- Find rate of muscle contraction
- Study dissolution of drugs in the bloodstream - Noyes -Whitney equation https://www.pharmpress.com/files/docs/remington-education-physical-pharmacy-sample-chapter-3.pdf
- Analyze bacterial growth https://www.britannica.com/science/bacteria/Growth-of-bacterial-populations
- Study population modeling - Logistical growth, Euler's method
- Study predator - prey modeling - Lotka-Voltera Equations, predator satiation, species formation https://services.math.duke.edu/education/webfeats/Word2HTML/Predator.html
- Study infectious disease modeling - SIR model https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/loci/joma/the-sir-model-for-spread-of-disease-the-differential-equation-model
Integrals can be used, for example, to:
- Find the change of temperature over a given time interval
- Find the voltage of brain neurons
- Study the dispersal of seeds in the environment
- Find the average rate of blood flow in the body
Chain rule can be used, for example, to:
- Find the effect of rainfall on a predator
- Growth of tumors
Two good additional references:
http://www-eve.ucdavis.edu/sschreiber/reprints/MAA.pdf
https://math.msu.edu/bio/calculus.html
written by Dr. Hala King, Ph.D.
