Light and Waves

Dr. Andrews has a wide-ranging scientific background. After college, he researched the effects of sunlight on the marine carbon cycle while working at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He then earned a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University (and a PhD minor in physics) with research on the effects of electric fields on molecular vibrations. He switched to systems biology for his postdoc positions, which were at the University of Cambridge and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In this work he developed novel computational methods for accurately simulating cell biology systems; as part of this work, he wrote software that is now widely used in the cell modeling research community. He also investigated information transfer during cell biology signaling, which has revealed several mechanisms that cells use to improve signaling fidelity. He is continuing this systems biology work, now as a research affiliate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dr. Andrews has published over 40 peer-reviewed publications on these research projects. Dr. Andrews is also passionate about teaching. He is an adjunct physics professor at Seattle University where his classes have included an introduction to mechanics, a senior-level statistical mechanics course, and a class on light and waves. This last class, which he developed from scratch, has been one of his particular interests and formed the genesis of the current book manuscript.

Preface.- 1 Introduction.- Part I: Waves.- 2 Properties of Waves.- 3 Superposition.- 4 Wave Interactions.- 5 Mechanical Waves.- Part II: Light.- 6 Electromagnetic Waves.- 7 Photons.- 8 Blackbody Radiation.- Part III: Rays.- 9 Shadows and Pinhole Cameras.- 10 Reflection.- 11 Refraction.- 12 Vision.- Appendices.- A Numbers.- B Units.- C Algebra.- D Geometry.- Index.

"'Light and Waves' fills a need to educate non-science majors and laypeople on the joy of optics. This highly recommended book inspires questions, curiosity, excitement and interest in the natural universe. ... this book special is the quality of the questions, the variety of worked problems with answers, the numerous exercises and crucial additional resources." (Barry R. Masters, optica-opn.org, October 26, 2023)

“‘Light and Waves’ fills a need to educate non-science majors and laypeople on the joy of optics. This highly recommended book inspires questions, curiosity, excitement and interest in the natural universe. … this book special is the quality of the questions, the variety of worked problems with answers, the numerous exercises and crucial additional resources.” (Barry R. Masters, optica-opn.org, October 26, 2023)