Classical and quantum mechanical concepts for the understanding of materials properties.

The lecture describes the fundamental properties of the most important construction materials: concrete and other mineral materials, metals, wood, glass and polymers. Furthermore, the content includes the relevant ecological aspects such as availability of raw materials, effort for production, emission of hazardous substances, disposal and recycling are treated as well.

The course emphasizes fundamental physical principles and focuses on the way these principles dictate the structure and function of cells. The course topics address biological concepts rooted in quantitative biological experimental data and it aims to provide the tools for a quantitative and predective understanding of cellular life.

This course is the research seminar of the groups of Profs. Wüthrich and Wider. The seminar can only be attended with the explicit permission of the organizers. Current research projects in areas relevant to structure determination of biological macromolecules by solution state NMR spectroscopy are presented and discussed. The seminar is tailored to PhD students and postdocs in structural biology.

This lecture course targets physics students and students of interdisciplinary sciences (major physics) for their education in biophysics. In this course the basics of molecular biology are presented bearing in mind the special interests of the physics students.

The course provides an introduction to the functional properties of neurons. Particularly the description of membrane electrical properties (action potentials, channels), neuronal anatomy, synaptic structures, and neuronal networks. Simple models of computation, learning, and behavior will be explained. Some artificial systems (robot, chip) are presented.

No description available.

Moisture transport and related degradation processes in building and civil engineering materials and structures; concepts of reliability analysis, poromechanics and multiscale analysis; analysis of damage cases.

Moisture related problems are common in buildings leading to costly damage and uncomfortable indoor environments. This course aims at providing the necessary theoretical background and training in order to foresee and avoid these problems.

Principles of heat and mass transport, hygro-thermal performance, durability of the building envelope and interaction with indoor and outdoor climates, applications.

Applying two fundamental principles of thermodynamics (entropy maximization and Gibbs energy minimization), an analytical model is derived for a variety of biological phenomena at the molecular as well as cellular level, and critically compared with the corresponding experimental data in the literature.

Clouds are a fascinating atmospheric phenomenon central to the hydrological cycle and the Earth`s climate. Interactions between cloud particles can result in precipitation, glaciation or evaporation of the cloud depending on its microstructure and microphysical processes.

This colloquium comprises geophysical research presentations by invited leading scientists from Europe and overseas, advanced ETH Ph.D. students, new and established ETH scientists with specific new work to be shared with the institute. Topics cover the field of geophysics and related disciplines, to be delivered at the level of a well-informed M.Sc. graduate/early Ph.D. student.

No description available.

This course offers an introduction to computer simulation methods for physics problems and their implementation on PCs and super computers. The covered topics include classical equations of motion, partial differential equations (wave equation, diffusion equation, Maxwell's equations), Monte Carlo simulations, percolation, phase transitions, and N-Body problems.