Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies

by Geoffrey West

In a similar fashion, the blood wave traveling along the aorta is partially reflected back when it meets the branch point, the remainder being transmitted down through the daughter arteries. These reflections have potentially very bad consequences because they mean that your heart is effectively pumping against itself. Furthermore, this effect gets hugely enhanced as blood flows down through the hierarchy of vessels because the same phenomenon occurs at each ensuing branch point in the network, resulting in a large amount of energy being expended by your heart just in overcoming these multiple reflections. This would be an extremely inefficient design, resulting in a huge burden on the heart and a huge waste of energy.