Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- Organization
- TTK Department of Biological Physics
- Code
- rpbbioinspf20em
- Title
- Bioinspired Systems
- Usual semester
- Autumn
- Published semester
- 2026/27/1
- ECTS
- 4
- Language
- en
- Learning outcomes
- The course explores general techniques and principles that are important for understanding biological systems and applying this knowledge, the design of bioinspired artificial systems with similar purposes or functions. The course also touches on the frontiers common with engineering and computer science, but keeping in mind that the main aspect is the application of the methods of physics to biologically complex systems. a) Knowledge: At the system level and in its context, he/she is aware of the research at the frontiers of physics and biology, and these overlapping with other scientific fields include engineering and computer science, as well as the possible directions for research. He/she is familiar with the theoretical, experimental, and computational methods of physics, and has in-depth and thorough professional knowledge, the application of which enables him/her to solve practical problems in the field of living and complex systems. b) Abilities: Able to participate in basic and applied research working with physicists, biologists, or a multidisciplinary research group examining the frontiers of biology and physics. With regular professional self-education, he/she is able to process new scientific results of biological physics and to apply them creatively in his/her work, especially with regard to the new and creative application of the methods of physics in the biological sciences. Based on his in-depth knowledge of the physical sciences, he is able to design, perform and evaluate experiments even in the case of biological systems. c) Attitude: He/she is characterized by creativity, flexibility, problem recognition and solution skills, intuition, systematical work and data processing skills. He/she has initiative, decision-making ability and personal responsibility. He/she actively cooperates with his/her colleagues, participates in group work in a constructive way, and communicates an informed way with the representatives of the neighboring scientific fields (biology, computer science, engineering, etc.), finding a common language. Working in a multidisciplinary research group, he/she helps guide his/her colleagues and deepen their knowledge on issues related to the field of physics, and distinguishes between scientifically based and insufficiently substantiated claims. d) Autonomy and responsibility: He/she consciously and responsibly takes on the worldview of science. He/she helps collaborating researchers from other disciplines to learn and master the vision of physics. He/she acts with a distinct environmental awareness in its field and laboratory activities. He/she conducts scientific research with the highest ethical standards and is also aware of the enhanced ethical knowledge required to research in living systems.
- Course content
- Major topics: introduction to sytems exhibiting scaling, basics of fractal geometry, simple models of growing structures, percolation, self-organized criticality, bacterial colonies (microbiological background, morphological diagram, models of colony growth, synchronization in biology, integrate and fire and the Kuramoto models, networks: models of equilibrium and growing graphs, processes and modules, collective motion: basic phenomena and models, group motion of people
- Assessment method
- oral exam
- Recommended bibliography
- T. Vicsek, ed.," Fluctuations and Scaling in Biology" (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford) 2001 Philip Ball, Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2001 Tamás Vicsek and Anna Zafeiris, "Collective motion", Physics Reports, 517(3-4), pp. 71-140, 2012