This page includes some of my “lighter” and nonscientific technical professional activities.
As noted on the homepage, you are welcome to visit my professional site http://www.columbia.edu/~iph1 for information on my more serious activities (research and teaching activities, papers and books, seminars and mini case scenarios in ethics (responsible conduct of research and professionalism), and virtual time capsules interrelating events in the first 15 decades of the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science with those in New York City (at seas150.columbia.edu/multimedia and the pdf version given below), though many question whether these are indeed serious efforts. There is some more light-hearted fare concerning my research and the American Presidency at http://www.columbia.edu/~iph1/hermanPresidency.html and below, and how my career may have been influenced by Superman at http://www.columbia.edu/~iph1/Download/Dr. Abner Sedgwick-for IPH website-newest-again2.pdf and below. Presentations on teaching research and professional ethics and on outreach to high school students are also presented at my professional site and here.
My three books (other than proceedings) are noted below. My second book is described at www.facebook.com/PhysicsOfTheHumanBody. See the page on this site concerning my most recent book, Coming Home to Math.
My relatively recent CV is:
(The links to artwork and files on this current page will be updated.)
Scroll below or use link to find:
Herman’s Research and the American Presidency
How Herman’s Career may have been influenced by the musical “It’s a Bird, It’s and Plane, It’s Superman”
Ethics Presentations and Materials
Outreach Presentation to High School Students
Laws of Herman
The “Laws of Herman” were published in Nature 445, 228 (2007). They are “tongue-in-cheek” advice to graduate students doing doctoral thesis work, in the form of 20 “laws.”
The First Amendment to the Laws of Herman: “If you didn’t document it, you didn’t do it.”
The Second Amendment to the Laws of Herman: “Do not present your advisor with only your data and analysis; also present your conclusions and plans for future work.”
The Third Amendment to the Laws of Herman: “Do not present your advisor with only your conclusions and plans for future work; also present your data and analysis.”
The Three Books of Herman
Optical Diagnostics for Thin Film Processing (1996) is a technical monograph that describes the increasing role of in situ optical diagnostics in thin film processing for applications ranging from fundamental science studies to process development to control during manufacturing.
The undergraduate text Physics of the Human Body (2016, 2nd ed) comprehensively addresses the physical and engineering aspects of human physiology by using and building on first-year college physics and mathematics.
The semi-popular book Coming Home to Math (2020) aims to make adults with little technical training more comfortable with math, in using it and enjoying it, and to allay their fears of math, enable their numerical thinking, and convince them that math is fun.
See the Coming Home to Math page on this site for more information and updates concerning this book, and http://www.facebook.com/Coming-Home-to-Math-106010094462401/.
Virtual Time Capsules interrelating events in the first 15 decades of the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science with those in New York City
Also see seas150.columbia.edu/multimedia, for the virtual time capsules in a different format. (This material can be used, but may not be modified and/or distributed.)
Herman’s Research and the American Presidency (from 2022)
My research program at Columbia University ended during Joe Biden’s presidency, so his is the last photo shown.
How Herman’s Career may have been influenced by the musical “It’s a Bird, It’s and Plane, It’s Superman”
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Ethics Presentations and Materials
Below are slide presentations on research, professional and industrial ethics and plagiarism, and related material given to graduate and undergraduate students. It is largely before the surge of AI, ChatGPT, and the like, the assoicated ethical questions in research, professionalism. (This material can be used, but may not be modified and/or distributed.)
Outreach Presentation to High School Students
This presentation to high school students prepared by my group is about nanomaterials and optics. (This material can be used, but may not be modified and/or distributed.)
Optical Diagnostics for Thin Film Processing (more details)
Optical Diagnostics for Thin Film Processing (Academic/Elsevier, 1996) describes the increasing role of in situ optical diagnostics in thin film processing for applications ranging from fundamental science studies to process development to control during manufacturing. The key advantage of optical diagnostics in these applications is that they are usually noninvasive and nonintrusive. Optical probes of the surface, film, wafer, and gas above the wafer are described for many processes, including plasma etching, MBE, MOCVD, and rapid thermal processing. For each optical technique, the underlying principles are presented, modes of experimental implementation are described, and applications of the diagnostics in thin film processing are analyzed, with examples drawn from microelectronics and optoelectronics. Special attention is paid to real-time probing of the surface, to the noninvasive measurement of temperature, and to the use of optical probes for process control.
This text can be used by students and those new to the topic as an introduction and review of the subject. It also serves as a comprehensive resource for engineers, technicians, researchers, and scientists already working in the field.
ISBN 0-12-342070-9
For an update see the invited review article “Optical Diagnostics for Thin Film Processing”, Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 54, 277-305 (2003).
Physics of the Human Body (more details)
Brand New Second Edition: Physics of the Human Body, by Irving P. Herman (Springer, 2016)
Springer Series: Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering, ISBN: 978-3-319-23930-9 (Print), 978-3-319-23932-3 (Online), DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-23932-3
Click for the Table of Contents of the Second Edition
This second edition includes expanded and cross-referenced treatments of motion, sports, multisegment modeling, pregnancy, diseases and disorders, and aging. It builds upon the first edition from 2007 in many other areas as well, including improved treatments of muscles and the throwing, hitting, and motion of balls and additional problems and solutions. This book can be of interest to physicists, biomedical engineers, physicians, physical therapists, and others who want to learn about the overlapping worlds of physics and medicine/human biology.
New Insights, updates, and questions for the 2nd Edition
First Edition: Physics of the Human Body, by Irving P. Herman (Springer, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, 2007)
Springer Series: Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering, 857 p., 571 illus., Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-540-29603-4
Click for the Table of Contents of the First Edition
The text “Physics of the Human Body” comprehensively addresses the physical and engineering aspects of human physiology by using and building on first-year college physics and mathematics. Topics include the mechanics of the static body and the body in motion, the materials properties of the body, muscles in the body, the energetics of body metabolism, fluid flow in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, the acoustics of sound waves in speaking and hearing, vision and the optics of the eye, the electrical properties of the body, and the basic engineering principles of feedback and control in regulating all aspects of function. The goal of this text is to understand physical issues concerning the human body, in part by developing and then using simple and subsequently more refined models of the macrophysics of the human body. Many chapters include a brief review of the necessary physical principles. There are problems at the end of each chapter; solutions to selected problems are also provided. This text is geared to undergraduates interested in physics, medical applications of physics, quantitative physiology, medicine, and biomedical engineering.
See the review in Physics Today.