I like math and bio and I want to study both. There is a subject called mathematical biology. What is it? What does a mathematical biologist do? What institutions have good mathematical biology programs?
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2How can you like math and bio at the same time? – evil999man May 07 '14 at 06:15
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I do I know it may sound weird but can't there be an exception and I am sure there are others too! – I.R May 07 '14 at 06:17
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Maybe it is that you don't like any of them... they are very different ways... studying at higher levels reveals the intricacies of a subject. – evil999man May 07 '14 at 06:20
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@Awesome what exactly you wanna say? – I.R May 07 '14 at 06:22
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4I also wonder where you are going with these statements, @Awesome. The second one, in particular... might not be the best thing I have read on the site. – Did May 07 '14 at 06:56
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1@IdeedRafiqi: It is perfectly fine to like both math and bio..... – May 07 '14 at 06:59
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They do a lot of modelling, they use a lot of numerical analysis, statistics, and concepts from physics. If you stray away from the "applied" side, they also work on a lot of SDEs. – IAmNoOne May 07 '14 at 07:19
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@nameless SDE's ? – I.R May 07 '14 at 07:22
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@ideed Stochastic Differential Equations. – IAmNoOne May 07 '14 at 07:23
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Mathematical biology asks many different questions. An intro course will look at things like population genetics (the study of the dynamics of gene propagation in populations) and basic bioinformatics. But any use of mathematical models in biology is in this field, and it can get fairly deeply mathematical. René Thom's classic "Structural Stability and Morphogenesis" applies algebraic topology and catastrophe theory to the modelling of biological structure. Knot theory is found in the study of DNA recombination and the action of enzymes like topoisomerase. Physiology and pharmacological dynamics all study rate equations over complex metabolic graphs. Nonequilibrium thermodynamics and dissipative structures are studied in the realm of biogenesis. Autocatalytic sets, fitness landscapes, etc. are modelled in basic information evolution studies.
The field is really as it sounds - it is the application of mathematics to biology.
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