Does The Human Circulatory System Apply Physics Concept?

Physics is known to be a natural science. It majorly entails the study of matter and the motion of matter through time and space, along with related concepts such as force and energy. Does the circulatory system apply concepts in physics as the blood circulates through the entire system? The circulatory system’s main objective is to transport blood throughout all the necessary parts of the body. The blood in effect transports nutrients and oxygen to these body parts and wastes away from these body parts to the organs that excrete them out of the body. The heart is the nerve centre of the circulatory system. This is so as it is this organ that pumps the blood that carries both the nutrients and wastes to the appropriate parts of the body.

The flow of fluids in the circulatory system obeys the law of bulk flow. The equation for the law of bulk flow is given by: Q = P / R where Q is the flow rate, R the resistance and P the pressure gradient. These fluids such as the blood flow down pressure gradients. There is a physical relationship between the radius of the blood vessels and the resistance of the fluid flow. According to the Poiseuille’s equation, the relationship between the resistance and the radius is inversely proportional. This means that a small change in the radius would result in large changes in the resistance of the flow. The body uses this concept in controlling the flow of the fluids in the circulatory system through vasodilatation and vasoconstriction.

In addition to the above two laws, the total flow of blood also follows the principle of the law of conservation of mass. This is true as for the fluid to flow in the circulatory system; there must be equality of the flow through each segment of the entire circula...

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...function to transport deoxygenated blood from tissues to the heart and oxygenated blood from the heart to tissues. The pulmonary systems on the other hand transport deoxygenated blood from heart into lungs and the oxygenated blood from the lungs to the heart.

In summary, the physics of the circulatory system is a broad topic that can take days to expound. This is evident since the circulatory system obeys physics laws such as Poiseuille’s equation, bulk flow, Bernoulli’s principle and the principle of the law of conservation of mass. Diffusion, series and parallel arrangement of blood flow, gravitational force and single or double circuiting are all physics concepts applied in the circulatory system. The circulatory system works on the assumptions that blood is incompressible, vessels are rigid and that there are no losses or transfusions of blood in the system.