From Mechanical Design to Natural Math: The Möbius Heart
Dear friends and colleagues,
We have been on a path of paradigm shifts and innovation designs for health and healthy environments for some time now. I have joined this joint journey in 2012. My path has not been linear, I got sidetracked and confused by personal stuff (illness, personal loss, mourning) and also by the illness that kills us all. Complexity overloads. Lost in translation. But... since I have been in formal alliance with Dr. Johan Gielis and the digital translations of modeling since last year, it cleared my view tremendously.
Since then, I explain my students the Nested Loops Method of Biomimetics. Theory and practice.
So, from now on, I will mainly convey to you the data-model-sciences and the practical examples that I have helped built and have been part of. There are a few very important strategic partnerships in the pipeline for Abundanism momentarily. Which makes us an even better partner for your brand and your own work in the same fields of health, environment and healthy architecture in smart-healthy cities. If you want to discuss, feel welcome to schedule a call and email me at desiree @ driesenaar.nl
This article is a biomimetics article translating the modern views on a helical heart to technology and solutions in the biomimetics.
💡 Key Takeaways
The Paradigm Shift: For 400 years, science viewed the heart as a basic mechanical pressure pump. Groundbreaking anatomy shows it is actually a continuous, twisted spiral.
The Möbius Geometry: The heart consists of a single muscle band folded into a double helix, working like a three-dimensional Möbius-Listing structure to actively suction blood.
Biomimetic Efficiency: By using fluid vortexes and clever geometry instead of brute force, the helical heart ejects over 70% of its volume with just 12% muscle cell contraction.
The Innovation Frontier: This natural blueprint—modeled via Johan Gielis's Superformula—is actively revolutionizing energy-efficient machine design, soft robotics, and medical tech.
From Past to Present Day Medicine
For 400 years, we have fundamentally misunderstood the human heart. Mainstream science dictated that the heart was a mechanical pressure pump. However, Spanish cardiologist and anatomist Dr. Francisco "Paco" Torrent-Guasp (1931-2005) made a revolutionary discovery that completely overturned traditional medicine.
The 400-Year Misconception: William Harvey vs. Torrent-Guasp
Since 1628, the medical world strictly followed the theories of English physician William Harvey.
Harvey described the heart as a standard mechanical pressure pump.
This classical model assumed the heart squeezes (systole) to push blood out, then passively relaxes (diastole) to fill back up.
Torrent-Guasp proved this model was physically impossible. A passive pump could never create enough suction, nor move fast enough, to circulate the massive volume of blood that travels through the human body.
Modern Biology - Not a Pump, But a Spiral (The Helical Heart)
By carefully dissecting thousands of hearts across various animal species, Torrent-Guasp uncovered a beautiful biological secret: the heart does not consist of four separate muscle walls.
Instead, the heart is one single, continuous muscle band—the Helical Ventricular Myocardial Band (HVMB). This single band is folded into a magnificent double spiral (helix), much like a twisted towel or a coiled rope.
Desiree: You remember, dear friends, how I always talk about design dynamics? How shape defines function, not the other way around? How hot air rises in a building and gives ventilation without machines by sucking up and letting out at the top? The solar chimney of the Venlo City Hall architect example in 2015? It is a great example of how a building is the skeleton and the air inside is like blood. A flow of breath. Healthy breath for healthy humans.
🌪️ The Hydrodynamics: Active Suction & Vortices
Instead of a crude squeezing motion, the helical heart moves in a highly coordinated wringing and rotating twist.
Active Suction: When the spiral untwists after contracting, it triggers a sudden vacuum effect. The heart actively suctions blood inward rather than letting it pool passively.
The Vortex: Blood never flows in rigid, straight lines. It moves in natural, fluid whirlpools (vortices) guided flawlessly by the spiral geometry of the muscle band.
While the anatomical reality of this continuous muscle band is now widely accepted in medical atlases, its full physiological impact remains a groundbreaking topic of debate in modern cardiology.
Desiree: The vortex is a very important dynamic shape in biology and physics. The narrow part of a hurricane sucks elements inside and pull down with gravity. The broader part give us centrifugal forces that spit elements out. Pull is more often used than push and brute force in biology.
The Biomimetic Blueprint: From Biology to Technology
For innovators, engineers, and designers, the geometric transformation of the heart is a masterclass in maximum efficiency with minimal energy. We can distill four fundamental design principles from this transformation:
🌀 Anisotropic Force Distribution: The muscle fibers cross each other in a precise crisscross network (angled at 60° downward and 60° upward). Because of this clever layout, the heart ejects over 70% of its blood volume with only a 12% physical shortening of its muscle cells. A standard linear mechanical pump would require a massive 40-50% cell shortening to achieve the same result.
📦 2D-to-3D Self-Assembly: In the embryonic phase, the heart develops exactly along this fold line—morphing from a flat, pulsating linear tube into a fully functional 3D helix. For soft robotics and deployable structures, this provides a brilliant blueprint for compact transit storage that expands into a high-pressure system.
🌊 Frictionless Fluid Dynamics: Because the internal chamber is shaped like an Archimedes' screw, blood is guided into a smooth hydrodynamic vortex. This eliminates turbulence, prevents stagnation (and blood clots), and saves the system a massive amount of kinetic energy.
🪢 Structural Continuity (The Fulcrum): Nature completely avoids detached, loose hinges that are prone to friction, wear, and mechanical failure. The entire muscle band is anchored to a single biological support point called the fulcrum (a cartilaginous ring at the aortic root). This single anchor serves as the ultimate biomechanical leverage point.
Desiree: my alliance with Dr. Johan Gielis (Inventing the Circle in 2003) and Genicap in Dutch Brainport has cleared up my view very much. After he left his director's job, he had more time to explain his Nature's Math to me. And this is what the Generalized Moebius Listings can do with the helical heart principles for groundbreakingly healthy innovations.
The Math Behind the Magic
Nature solves complex fluid dynamics by choosing clever geometry over brute mechanical force. By applying the Biomimetics Superformula and Generalized Möbius Listings (GML) developed by Dr. Johan Gielis, we can now translate the heart's organic curves into exact computer code.
These exact principles are actively reshaping how we manufacture artificial organs, synthetic blood vessels, and next-generation, energy-efficient industrial mixing machinery.
Why Energy-Efficient Design is No Longer Optional
Energy efficiency is the single greatest challenge of our era. As we face an increasingly volatile planet—marked by shifting climates, earthquakes, floods, and collapsing infrastructure—biomimetics holds the vital solutions we need.
This is precisely why I left the traditional mechanical engineering innovation sector. Back between 2008 and 2014, my colleagues routinely dismissed these ideas, saying: "Desiree, the client isn't asking for energy efficiency."
Energy Solutions
Fast forward more than 12 years later, and grid congestion, soaring costs, and energy limits dominate every industry discussion. Today, everyone is asking for energy-efficient solutions. Nature figured out the math millions of years ago—it is time for our technology to catch up.
Conclusion
Desiree: Soon, I will make time to explain more in Dutch and English via our abundanism YouTube channel. Your daily dose of simple complexity. Because the simple? Well, we are not all doctors are we? So, you normally live your life on "feeling", intuition. And the path that is for you unfolds in front of your feet.
At least, that's how I experience it. I get signals that are meant only for me. Dreams. People that cross my path. Overheard conversations. Something I read, do, experience. And it clicks in my mind. Ahhhhh... that's how it works! That's how the healthy futures might scale...
Warm regards, dear friends and colleagues,
we might meet in Peloponnese, Greece or in Limburg, Netherlands ...where the Einstein Telescope bid is in full flow.
Desiree @ abundanism
abundance is a dance...
...with natural unfolding rhythms
Translator of complexity for groundbreakingly healthy innovations
And... if abundance is a dance, I'd better learn the Zerbekiko (Greek, fierce solodance) and the Flamenco. I dance with my friends here in Greece. I dance with Mike in my new home. I dance with the grandkids and do some Genshin Impact gaming with my young friend Lara. Because as a woman in tech explanations... I'd better be as much a butterflying strong woman as I can be...
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