• Question: What is better Chemistry,Biology or Physics

    Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi, sakshisharda on 16 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Sakshi Sharda

      Sakshi Sharda answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      Hello mjp2002

      I wish I could say Biology is the best, but at the level of research it gets so interdisciplinary that we need to use and understand a little bit of everything. For example, I study the role of fat in diabetes and for that I need to know the chemical structure of fat, which requires chemistry. Then for instance, if I have to see how much muscle and fat one has, to answer a question about diabetes, I would need a DEXA scan (which can help to view your skeleton and fat when you lie under the scanner of the machine, it’s really cool, you can see more of that on http://www.utexas.edu/features/2007/fit/) that is based on principles of physics!

    • Photo: Ian Stephenson

      Ian Stephenson answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      There’s a science joke/saying that Biology is just applied Chemstry, and Chemistry is just applied Physics, and Physics is just applied Maths.

      Personally I like maths and physics, but does that make them better?
      (well yes… yes it does! so there! ;-))

    • Photo: Naomi Osborne

      Naomi Osborne answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      I find biology most interesting – particularly learning about bacteria, viruses and our immune system – so I’m biased and think it’s better than chemistry and physics!

      Biology often goes hand in hand with chemistry though – I work closely with chemists who make new antibiotics which I then test for activity against bacteria, so it helps having an understanding of how these antibiotics are made (and it also helps if the chemists know how they kill bacteria!).

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