Why Is Spider Silk Stronger than Steel? #shorts

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[chrisbusenkell]

What!!??? Spider silk isn't as strong as carbon nanotubes?! Damn those arachnids and their lackluster R&D department. I think that's whats been holding them back from the top predator spot for millions of years.

[kaderiley]

Spider-Man makes so much more sense now

[ThatSpecificIndividual]

"Then why can I destroy cobwebs so easily?"

Try pressing steel into the thickness of a spider web and see.

[bluegold]

Imagine the possibilities if we could find a way to mass produce spider silk. The material could be used for anything from suspension bridge cables to artificial ligaments.

[TheInstinctWithinV]

It's like people don't understand perspective. Of course you, a creature many hundred times larger than a spider can destroy a web easily. But if the spider was the size of a human, you would have no chance of tearing apart its webs, and it would eat you.

[ExTess]

Spiders also use different kinds of silk with different strengths/thicknesses when traveling (which is where most cobwebs come from in the first place) vs when catching food or building nests. They use lighter, weaker silk when moving around because they only need the silk as a security line in case they fall or in case they want to rappel from one point to another. When they're getting ready to catch food they will use much stronger silk to really make sure that what they're trying to catch _stays_ caught. They also use the stronger silk when building nests to better protect from the elements around them, and softer silks for their eggs.

[Undomaranel]

Got points docked for that in 3rd grade, and a stern "I know you know better than that" look. I even showed the Ranger Rick AND Zoobooks articles on it. No dice for 8 year old me in the 90s.

[AvenDonn]

Spider: literally shits out a string 5 times stronger than steel

Humans: cope and seethe and say it's not quite as strong as carbon nanotubes which we can't even industrially produce to any meaningful scale

[J.Jonah.Jameson.]

If only someone could use spider silk as a transportation method.
Swinging around the city, doing whatever a spider can.

[chadsolomon]

🎶Spiderman, Spiderman... Does whatever a spider can🎶

[johntheux]

They have the same tensile strength as steel, they are just lighter.
But they have way more elasticity so the have more toughness.

[cheese]

"Some say spider silk is stronger than steel...




BUT LOOK IM TEARING TROUGH IT WITHOUT EVEN TRYING!"
- Dr. Edward Richtofen

[merilynnshark]

Mother nature really made their own carbon nanotubes

[kingace]

Wow. Spider silk just got even cooler.

[WendiGonerLH]

Fun fact, silk was used in the invention of the first bulletproof vests, similar to how kevlar is used today.

[deltoid-nick]

That didn't really answer why they're so easy to tear out

my hypothesis is that they are strong and the surfaces that they are adhered to are not as strong as the spider web itself.

I mean I've actually taken one strand of spider web and looped it around my finger the other one and it is really really strong for how thin it is compared to anything else it's also quite impressive how stretchy it is.

[andrew]

They should modify Spiders to print silk nanotubes

[BlameItOnGreg]

That answer was to “how”, not to “why”.

[billyaitken]

Aussie golden orb has the strongest web of them all, which is why 6 of them were put on the space shuttle for experiments. Sadly, they were on the last flight of the Challenger, so that was the end of them🫣.

[OutlawSlayer]

This should be on the Today I found out channel