water is the solvent of life. and To think, your brain is made of mostly water.

Inside vessels, blood flows in mysterious ways.

Image credit: Stanford Center for Turbulence Research

                           

At a critical velocity, fluid flow is no longer laminar, and becomes turbulent with eddies and a chaotic motion upon which flowrate volume is no longer dependent.

R is the Reynolds number; fow blood flow, this is approximately 2000. as the aorta represents a high blood flow, some turbulence is expected at this site.

'Lifelines'. Francesco Iori. Imperial College London.
The above image shows abnormal blood patterns in a arterio-venous fistulae in patients on kidney dialysis. researchers attempt to design fistulae capable of stable (laminar) flow patterns, based on computer simulation software from aerospace engineering!

        "Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocities; and little whirls have lesser whirls and so on to viscosity", as said Lewis Fry Richardson, on             the topic of atmospheric turbulence.

                                       
                                        Arts meets science. Where water appears to draw itself, can such an image help us understand the mathematics of turbulence?                                         Image credit: Goh Shigetomi