Although most people are afraid of spiders, I love them.
Peter Pike, the protagonist of the movie Spider-Man, is bitten by a radioactively infected spider during a science exhibition and acquires spider-like superpowers such as super strength, super agility, spider sensing, and the ability to walk on walls like a spider. Eventually, Peter Pike became Marvel's superhero and made his name , Spider-Man.
Marvel boss Stan Lee is a favorite to make cameos in his own films, and as a screenwriter, he created the Spider-Man series with cartoonist Steve Dietko. Perhaps it's the setting of Spider-Man that resonates with shy teenagers and even freaks, and since 1962, when the image first appeared in Marvel Fantasy #15, Spider-Man has been incredibly popular.
Let's go back to the spider itself and the science associated with it. Spiders belong to the order Arachnids, which are arthropods like scorpions or mites. Of course, if the mite could be bigger, there might be a doomsday movie of its own. To date, as many as 46,500 species of spiders have been identified, and many of them have surprising characteristics.
Spiders are able to make a tough protein fiber, which is what we often call a "spider web." Scientists and engineers have been working on this extremely unique material for many years in an attempt to discover new uses.
Not all spiders weave webs, only those weaver spiders with poor vision need to weave a web to make it easier for them to hunt and eat. How strong are cobwebs? The pencil-thick (70 mm) spider silk, which can stop a flying Boeing 747, is more than five times stronger than steel and almost five times stronger than Kevlar's body armor.
If you are accurate to the numbers, according to the thickness of a spider silk is 1 micron, that is, one thousandth of a millimeter, only 70,000 spiders are enough to stop our Boeing plane.
In addition to stopping the plane, the biocompatibility of spider silk also makes it potentially useful in biotechnology, regenerative medicine, absorbable surgical sutures or cell culture. Other possible uses are also being studied to improve the efficiency and durability of batteries for use in smartphones or tablets.
In addition to being able to weave webs, spider fibers have many other uses, such as nesting, breeding, climbing, floating, diving bells (for spiders that live underwater), motion sensors, and even food – when there is nothing else to eat.
The spider's airborne behavior is also known as "balloon flight", which is somewhat similar to the paragliding training done by humans. Spiders have spider webs that can both drift with the wind and stick to their prey, so they can travel tens of kilometers away to "colonize" islands in order to survive and let the spider species spread everywhere.
In 1883, The Krakatoa Volcano erupted, almost completely destroying the small island between Java and Sumatra. Seven months later, the first creatures discovered by the explorers who landed on the island were spiders— most likely they arrived at the island by floating in the air.
Let's talk about Spider-Man from Spider-Man. Is there any scientific rationale for Spider-Man's existence?
First, let's look at Spider-Man's ability to climb walls. In the film, we see small spikes growing on the superhero's fingers – though strictly speaking, we're not sure if those little hooks are enough to get him up the wall. So how does the spider do this?
The answer is through the so-called "van der Waals Force". Spiders, or salamanders, lizards, etc., have thousands of tiny bristles on their feet, which produce "van der Waals forces" when they come into close contact with molecules on the surface of the wall, allowing them to crawl on the wall.
Roughly speaking, the "van der Waals force" is generated because the positive and negative charges of molecules are not always evenly distributed, and short positive and negative charge regions are created in different molecules, which attract each other. Although these forces are very weak, when there are a large number of molecules moving at the same time, the effect is multiplied.
According to the quadratic cubic law, the proportion of the body on the surface capable of producing the "van der Waals force" should depend on the weight of the climber – which is quite logical. For spiders, they are lightweight, and it is enough to rely only on the tiny surface of their claws, while 40% of the skin must be bristled if humans want to rely on the "van der Waals Force" to walk on the walls – or, according to the University of Cambridge, a pair of feet measuring 145 yards (132.588 meters).
As for the spider's senses—thanks to this, Peter got rid of his glasses—its four pairs of eyes could focus in different directions, thus keeping an eye on everything around it.
Although spiders are usually short-sighted, jumping spiders have four layers of photoreceptor cells on their retina, so they have the best vision in the animal kingdom. Most spiders, although they can't see things, have hairs all over their bodies, especially on their feet, that are sensitive to vibrations and the flow of air, which makes them feel and react to impending dangers. This is the famous spider induction that Spider-Man has.