Problem

The foot of your average gecko is covered with billions of tiny hair tips—called spatulae—...

The foot of your average gecko is covered with billions of tiny hair tips—called spatulae—that are made of keratin, the protein found in human hair. A subtle shift of the electron distribution in both the spatulae and the wall to which a gecko clings produces an adhesive force by means of the van der Waals interaction between molecules. Suppose a gecko uses its spatulae to cling to a vertical windowpane. If you were to describe this situation in terms of a coefficient of static friction, µs, what value would you assign to µs? Is this a sensible way to model the gecko’s feat? Explain.

Step-by-Step Solution

Request Professional Solution

Request Solution!

We need at least 10 more requests to produce the solution.

0 / 10 have requested this problem solution

The more requests, the faster the answer.

Request! (Login Required)


All students who have requested the solution will be notified once they are available.
Add your Solution
Textbook Solutions and Answers Search