- In the 1960's Stan Lee was trying to come up
with new superheroes for Marvel Comics.
He wanted new powers that hadn't been done before
and found inspiration from a spider
that he saw crawling on a wall
and just like that he had his new character.
A hero with the power to stick to walls,
Spider-Man.
Now whether or not you believe that story,
which Stan himself even implies is probably not true,
the point is that clinging to walls
is a defining characteristic of Spider-Man.
But a recent scientific study has shown
that it would be impossible for the old wall crawler
to actually crawl walls and I wanna know how true that is.
(heavy metal electric guitar music)
What's this, another Spider-Man video?
I know, I know the channel is starting to look
a little spider heavy as of late.
If you follow me on Snapchat you know
that I was planning on making a cyborg video this week
but since this spider science has been sweeping the internet
I couldn't resist digging in myself.
Plus you guys voted on Twitter so look
I mean I don't have to explain myself.
This is my show!
We're gonna talk about Spider-Man.
As I said, making its way around the internet very recently
was a study published
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
that disproved Spider-Man's ability to cling to walls.
Two interesting things about this study.
Number one it was actually published in December of 2015
but for some reason the entire internet decided
to talk about it all at once over a month later.
Number two nowhere in this study
does it actually mention Spider-Man at all.
Seriously, go read it or at the very least
control F that thing for Spider-Man,
it is nowhere and as a comics fan
that makes me really, really happy
that we as a culture seem to instinctively relate
new scientific studies with superheroes.
I love this time.
We live in a great time.
Anyway the study is called
Extreme Positive Allometry of Animal Adhesive Pads
and the Size limits of Adhesion-based Climbing
and I can sense that you're already wanting to click away
from the video but I promise super interesting stuff.
Before we get into this study, we should take a look
at the comics to see how they explain
Spider-Man's clinging ability.
How exactly does the wall crawler crawl walls
in the first place?
We get our answer in the form of several entries
in several editions of The Official Handbook
of the Marvel Universe.
It's stated quite clearly, although not exactly confidently,
that Spider-Man quote "apparently has the ability
"to mentally control the flux of inter-atomic interaction
"between the molecular boundary layers.
"This ability to affect the attraction between surfaces
"is limited to Spider-Man's body (especially concentrated
"in his hands and feet) and another object
"with an upper limit of several tons per finger."
Okay so that sounded like a bunch of weird nonsense
but is there any truth behind the science
of this explanation?
Actually, yeah the way that animals like spiders
or even geckos stick to walls is thanks
to tiny hair-like structures called
setae which are tipped with hundreds
of even smaller structures called septulae.
You might notice that these kinda look similar
to what the 2002 Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie showed
growing out of Peter Parker's hands.
So good job movies.
These microscopic projections are key
because they exploit a phenomenon in physics
knows as Intermolecular Forces.
Sometimes under the catch all term of van der Waals Forces.
Van der Waals to stand on walls, sort of.
Picture a molecule
that has electrons zipping around unpredictably.
We like to imagine that these electrons line up
in a nice structured pattern
but it's really a lot more chaotic than that.
Statistically there are way more configurations
where the electrons are out of order than in order.
Sometimes you'll have the molecule's electrons
all grouped to one side of the atom
which gives that side a slight negative charge
and the opposite side a slight positive charge.
If you introduce another molecule
which just so happens to have its electrons structured
in a similar fashion, the two will be attracted
towards one another via one molecule's
slightly positive charged side
and the other's slightly negatively charged side.
The setae in a gecko's toes or Pete's hands
have fluctuating electrons and if those tiny hairs
become slightly negatively charged for even just a moment
they repel the electrons in the molecules of the wall
since like charges repel each other
and create a slight positive charge in the wall.
Opposite charges attract so an attractive force is created
between Spidey and the wall.
This is what I believe the Marvel Handbook meant
by Spider-Man having the ability to control the flux
of interatomic forces between molecules.
You might be wondering how this power could work
through his costume.
Spider-Man wears a full body suit.
That would totally get in the way right?
As far as I know this has never been fully explained
in the comics but we do know it's one of the main reasons
why Spider-Man wears a thin skin-tight spandex costume.
When Steve Ditko was designing the character's costume,
he remarked how a clinging power wouldn't work
if he gave Spider-Man hard, thick shoes or boots.
The suit had to be something form fitting
and thin enough to allow for this ability
to work through his costume.
And that's why there have been times when Pete
has had to take off his shoes
to use his wall crawling ability
when he's wearing civilian clothes.
I know The Marvel Handbook explanation
says that each of Spider-Man's fingertips can support
several tons each but van der Waals Forces are so weak
that Spider-Man would need billions upon billions
of these tiny hairs all over his body
for that force to add up and support his weight.
And that's where this recent study comes into play.
Researchers examined 225 different species
of climbing animals from amphibians, insects, lizards
and of course spiders to observe the limits
of their climbing abilities in correlation with body size.
As you might expect, creatures with a smaller body mass
only need a tiny percentage of their surface area
to be covered in adhesive pads
in order to support their own weight when climbing.
You can see in this handy scale that ants on average
need about .09% of their body surface area
to be covered in sticky foot pads.
Spiders need a bit more at just under 1%,
geckos need about 4.3% and humans would need
a whopping 40% of our total body surface
or about 80% of just the front of us
to be covered by adhesive pads.
According to one of the senior authors
of the study Walter Federle, if humans wanted
to climb walls like a gecko quote "We'd need impractically
"large sticky feet and shoes in European size 145
"or US size 114".
Just for comparison The Guinness Book of World Records
recognizes this man as the record holder
for the biggest feet and his shoes are still just size 26.
So that's it.
We can all give up on our dreams
of being Spider-Man because science says it's impossible.
We'll never be able to scale
tall New York sky scrapers.
Not that I would want to, it sounds terrifying.
I have a very prominent fear of cities.
But hold on, if saying that Spidey would need 40 to 80%
of his body covered in those microscopic hairs
to stick to a surface seems a bit overkill,
that's because the researchers were basing it off of
naturally occurring setae in animals like the gecko.
And sure making the surface area bigger
to accommodate for bigger animals like us humans
is certainly one solution but another would be
to instead make Spider-Man clingier.
Thankfully ingenious scientists at Stanford University's
Department of Mechanical Engineering have created something
even better than gecko toes.
You can see a video of it here.
They are hand grips with a connected foot support
that allows for us large, awkward, clunky humans
to overcome gravity and scale buildings
and I do mean just buildings.
These pads work best on smooth surfaces like glass
but don't work great on uneven surfaces
that you might find out in nature.
But that's fine, Spider-Man is all about the city.
So as long as I can still climb skyscrapers
wearing a Spider-Man onesie
then I'd call this a victory for science.
What do you guys think?
How does Spider-Man's wall clinging power work
and is it ever something that we could effectively achieve
either through tiny organic hairs like Spider-Man
or through technology?
Let's talk about it all in the comments
and if you wanna learn more about Spider-Man's powers
and abilities click right here to learn about the history
of his webshooters.
Both organic webbing and mechanical devices.
I make a really insensitive Gwen Stacy joke in it
so click right here to check it out.
And if you want more comic book science
why not check out this video on Deadpool's healing factor?
The movie is coming up so impress your friends
with this fun comic book theory
about how Deadpool's cancer might actually be
a beneficial mutation.
Click here to watch that one.
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we make for you every week that explore
the history, science, art and philosophy
behind your favorite comic book superheroes.
My name is Scott and I will see you right here
on Friday for another video.
See ya.