MCAT fluids: Poiseuille's law
The Narrowed Artery
A plaque halves the radius of a coronary artery. A three-minute film on why the blood flow does not halve, or quarter, but falls to one sixteenth, and why that fourth power runs the circulation.
This browser has 3D graphics turned off, so the set cannot be drawn. The math and the narration still play.
The problem
A plaque narrows a coronary artery to half its original radius. If the pressure difference across the segment and the viscosity of the blood are unchanged, blood flow through the segment falls to what fraction of its original value?
1/16 of the original flow
