Spider-Man, Spider-Man.
Does whatever a spider can.
Hold on a second.
That’s not Spider-Man.
That’s you.
Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man,
developed his arachnid abilities
after being bitten by a radioactive spider.
This gave him
superhuman strength and reflexes,
as well as the ability to crawl on walls.
But the Spidey skill
you’re most interested in
is the web.
That’s what allows Peter Parker
to swing around skyscrapers
and tangle up baddies.
Spiders make their webs from silk,
a natural protein fiber.
They produce this liquid protein
in a cluster of organs in their abdomen
called spinnerets.
Once ejected,
the protein forms into fibers
that spriders pull out of their bodies
with their hind legs.
So if you wanted to make your own web,
would you need spider organ implants?
Sorry to say,
but we’re not going to wait around
for you to get bitten
by a radioactive spider.
Let’s come up with our own
web-slinging alternative.
You might have heard
that spider silk is stronger than steel.
And when it comes to physical properties
like tensile strength,
this would be technically true.
But your average spiderweb
couldn’t catch a human or support you
dangling from the Empire State Building.
There are seven different
silk glands in spiders.
They all produce different silk.
But no spider has all seven.
Some spiders produce silks
with a lovely golden sheen.
Others with a white or bluish hue.
But you’d be looking for the toughest.
Check out the Darwin bark spider.
A one mm (0.4 in) thick thread of this silk
could support the weight
of a panda dangling from it.
Tough, but not tough enough.
Switch over to a maraging steel cable
of the same thickness.
Now your web could support
the weight of a full-grown gorilla.
But for the heroic acts
you’d need to accomplish
as a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,
like stopping a train moving at full speed,
you’d need something lightweight
and tougher than steel.
Like a carbon nanotube rope.
At a thickness of two mm (0.08 in),
this material would have enough tension
to catch a falling car without breaking.
Though, you’d certainly need to hit the gym
and build up your non-superhero
human strength.
With that all sorted,
you’d need to pack that
into Spider-Man’s
watch-sized wrist contraption,
and you’d be ready to save the day.
Well, almost ready.
Imagine you wanted to make
one single swing from a 10 story building.
You’d need 20 m (65 ft)
of carbon nanotube rope.
The volume of the rope you'd need
for that one use would be similar
to the volume of one-and-a-half golf balls.
You’d certainly want to swing
more than once.
If you tried 50 times per hand,
you’d need your wrist containers
to be about 10 cm (4 in) in length.
Hardly inconspicuous.
But it sure beats the heavy backpack
you’d need for the same amount
of steel cable.
Now you’d need to calibrate
the rope’s launch speed.
Let’s start with that 10 story building.
Your rope would need to launch
at a speed higher than 24 m/s (54 mph)
to reach that height.
That’s about three times slower
than an arrow shot from a bow.
You’d get more reach
if you stick to catching villains.
Launching your rope
at a 45-degree angle onto a thief below
would mean your web could reach
a distance of about 60 m (200 ft).
All this carbon nanotube rope
would allow you to do
some pretty incredible things.
But it would still not be as exciting
as Spider-Man’s silk webs.
We’re still waiting on science
to work that out.
Recently researchers used
a modified strand of E. coli bacteria
to create silk.
It behaved like spider silk
and was even a bit stronger.
Maybe while they are working on that
you could figure out
how to make all this material dissolvable.
Imagine walking to work
and seeing all the rats,
raccoons and pigeons
trapped in tons of sticky webs.
Oops.
Or worse,
imagine getting caught
in a giant spiderweb yourself.
Well, that’s a story
for another WHAT IF.