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Spiders and Physics

michaelford3

Entry posted by michaelford3

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Spiders scare me. It is a fact that I am ashamed of, but nonetheless it is true. I've been told that one of the ways to eraticate a specific fear is to develop a stronger understanding of it. However, there are many incredible facts about spiders that I just can't seem to understand. For example, jumping spiders can jump distances over 50x their own length. This fascinates me, because it would be the equivelant of me, barely 6 feet tall, doing a standing broad jump that scales over 300 feet! The world record for a standing broad jump for a human was set in 1904 by Ray Ewry, who jumped a distance of 11.4 feet. This makes me wonder exactly how the jumping spiders are internally structured to be able to be capable of doing such a thing. In addition, some spiders are also fast on their feet.

The common wolf spider (which is native to Rochester) can travel at about 2 feet per second. I find it astounding how it is even posssible for a bug to be able to move that fast. Hopefully, as my understanding of physics grows, I will be able to calculate how fast wolf spiders will be able to move if they were much larger. I'm not sure if understanding spiders more will truly make me less afraid of them, or if it will just make me even more horrified of them. Either way, they are very cool to learn about.
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FizziksGuy

They are cool, but I'm not a big fan of them either.  We had some BIG wolf spiders when I lived in Texas, and they jumped too.  Ick.

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