Russell K. Hobbie

Professor Emeritus

School of Physics and Astronomy University of Minnesota 116 Church St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455

Home: 2151 Folwell Ave. St. Paul, MN 55108

Phone: Home (651) 644-1041
Office: I am best reached by phone (above) or at the e-mail address below.
Email: hobbie at umn.edu

Education

B.S., MIT, 1956
A.M., Harvard University, 1957.
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1960.

Positions Held

Research Associate, University of Minnesota, 1960-62
Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Minnesota, 1962-65
Associate Professor of Physics, University of Minnesota, 1965-72
Professor of Physics, University of Minnesota, 1972-1998
Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, 1998-
Visiting Professor, Vanderbilt University, 1999
Director, Space Science Center, 1979-1984
Associate Dean for Student Affairs, 1984-1995

Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology

The fourth edition, with co-author Brad Roth, is now available: Springer, 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-30942-2. A new chapter discusses hearing and ultrasound. Information, including the Table of Contents, Solutions Manual, and errata, can be found at http://www.oakland.edu/~roth/hobbie.htm A password is required to read the solutions manual. Instructors can contact either author for the password. An interview with me about the history of the book is available in the American Physical Society Division of Biological Physics Newsletter.

See also the weekly blog.

MacDose

MacDose is a computer program designed to teach about the interaction of radiation with matter. It provides a two-dimensional simulation of the photoelectric effect, coherent scattering, Compton scattering, and pair production. It distinguishes between stochastic quantities, such as the energy transferred and the energy imparted, and average quantities such as the kerma and absorbed dose. It runs on any Macintosh with OS-9 or earlier, including Classic in OS-X. It used to be distributed by Medical Physics Publishing Company, but now it is freeware. An Apple Macintosh DiscCopy image is available here as a binhex file and includes MacDose, the Student Manual, and the Instructor's Guide.

There is also a 26  minute Quicktime movie in which I use MacDose to demonstrate various concepts related to the attenuation and absorption of x rays. The Movie is a 40 MB file.

Research Interests, Courses and Retirement

I retired in 1998. I remain active and can still be reached by e-mail. (I do not have any students.)

Selected Publications

Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. Fourth Edition, Springer, 2007.

Active Physics: (The unit on Medicine). with J. Koser, T. Goerke and A. Eisenkraft. College Park, MD., American Association of Physics Teachers, 1998. Distributed by It's About Time, Inc. Armonk, NY.

Imaging with Non-ionizing Radiation. E. Russell Ritenour and R. K. Hobbie. Ch. 10 of W. R. Hendee (ed.) Biomedical Use of Radiation. Part A: Diagnostic Applications. VCH, 1997.

Radiation Science. With P. Carson et al., Radiology Centennial, Inc. and Kendall-Hunt Publishing Co., 1995.

MacDose. (Computer Program) Previously distributed by Medical Physics Publishing Corp., Madison, WI, 1990. This is now freeware. Use the URL listed above to obtain a copy.

Honors

First Prize - AAPT Film Competition, 1969
Certificate of Appreciation, Minnesota Science Teachers Association, 1985
Distinguished Service Citation, Amer. Assoc. of Physics Teachers, 1986
Tau Beta Pi - Eminent Engineer, 1993
George Taylor Distinguished Teaching Award, Institute of Technology, 1995

Last modified: July 17, 2009