Plenary Lecture

A new Concept for the Geometry of Biological Structures beyond the Cell Level. The role of Irrational Numbers

Professor Vassilis Gekas
Department of Environmental Engineering
Technical University of Crete,
CHANIA Campus Kounoipidiana, GR 731 00 Greece

Abstract: In the Environmental Health Engineering there is a strong need for modeling the geometry of hierarchically higher biological structures. This work is focusing on the problem of pollutants transfer in the lung. The lung has been in the literature modeled in different ways, even in double fractality terms most recently, but none to our opinion has caught the point.
Biological structures show self-similarity and branching but not a in a irregular way. They follow patterns of the golden geometry based on the irrational numbers such as the phi, the square root of two or the square root of three. The rational and the irrational interact everywhere in the Universe (Plato) and we have, in all modesty, produced integer sequences started from the Fibonnacci one, in order to get the square roots of 2 and 3, the Archimedes enigma being this way solved. Then the geometry of the lung and other similar "golden geometry" structures (term coined by us) is approximated in the best and most useful manner for for the practical engineer due to the simplicity of the derived transport equations examples of which will be given in the presentation.

Brief Biography of the Presenter:
MSc Chemical Engineer NTUA Athens 1971, PhD Food Engineering, Lund , 1987, Sweden. Vassilis Gekas is Professor of Transport Phenomena amd Directore of the Transport Phenomena & Environmental Thermodynamics at the Technical University of Crete.
He gained international reputation in the Membrane Technology both the synthetic and biological membranes. Author of the CRC edited book of "Transport Phenomena of Foods and Biological Materials " , boca Ratomn FL, 1992. Author of several books in Greek. He was the first to be chairman of the Environmental Engineering dpt , 1984- 2003. He deals with teaching and research in the following fields: Renewal energy sources, desertification, unit operations with developing of Greek raw materials , recovery of high added value constituents from agro-food wastes, enzymatic conversion of starch, thermal treatment of solid wastes, solar cooling. His approximately 50 publications in international journals gained the attention of approximately 1000 colleagues (CI=1000).