*59.   The aorta carries blood away from the heart at a speed of about 40 cm/s and has a radius of approximately 1.1 cm. The aorta branches eventually into a large number of tiny capillaries that distribute the blood to the various body organs. In a capillary, the blood speed is approximately 0.07 cm/s, and the radius is about 6 x 10-4 cm. Treat the blood as an incompressible fluid, and use these data to determine the approximate number of capillaries in the human body.

 

This mass per time must be constant if there is no blood loss occurring.  Solve for the number of capillaries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This page last updated on January 11, 2020