Department of Life Sciences, Silwood Park.
J Biosci. 2023;48.
There are many ways in which methods and theories from physics can and have been applied to biology and ecology. The oldest example is the application of classical mechanics to animal movement (biomechanics), from tiny bacteria to massive whales. This application is intuitive: most people when observing an elephant lumber along would be happy to conclude that animals are machines in that they are so obviously made of moving parts designed to perform work (in its physical sense) under the constraints of elementary forces (predominantly gravity if you were an elephant!). Indeed, the potential for this link between physics and biology was foreseen by Aristotle around 2000 years before the mathematical bases of classical mechanics were founded (Nussbaum 1986).
物理学的方法和理论有许多可以被应用于生物学和生态学的途径和领域。最古老的例子是将经典力学应用于动物运动（生物力学），从微小的细菌到巨大的鲸鱼。这种应用是直观的：大多数人在观察大象缓慢移动时，都会很乐意得出这样的结论，即动物是机器，因为它们显然是由运动部件组成的，这些部件被设计用来在基本力（如果你是一头大象，主要是重力）的约束下进行物理意义上的工作。事实上，早在经典力学的数学基础建立之前大约 2000 年前，亚里士多德就已经预见到了物理学和生物学之间的这种联系（Nussbaum 1986）。
