I knew it had something to do with geckos when I saw that it worked only under tension. Never knew we made anything close to it. Very interesting stuff.
You should check out geck skin. It's also biomimicry but it's based on the relationship between skin and tendons as opposed to skin texture. I honestly don't fully understand it, but it doesn't require microscopic features which should make it easier to produce.
Wow i remember when i was younger, my family didn't have cable so i was stuck watching local TV. One of my favorite shows was on PBS kids called Wild Kratts. These 2 guys taught you all about animals but one of my favorites was the Gecko. The guys in this show had Gecko-inspired suits which i always wanted to be real. This is really making my childhood dreams come true
I had my equivalent of a Disney moment in my garden a few weeks ago when a gecko landed on the back of my hand. Having the real thing walk across my skin was remarkable. I swear that I could feel the pads of its feet moulding to the profile of my skin and this video kind of confirms that experience. (Beautiful little shimmering speckled beasty!) I let it down gently onto a tussock grass and it went on its way. Biomimetics has much to teach us.
Man. This seems so cool and awesome. I can think of actual practical applications this might have and in about 5 years from now, this might be in our lives in ways unimaginable. Veritasium is one of my favourite channel on YT. Loved the video absolutely!
I remember watching a seminar on this topic during my UCSB freshman chemical engineering orientation tour in 2009. Crazy to see the early research I learned about coming to fruition 14 years later.
Thanks so much to Derek and team for visiting our lab! This was a great video on our gecko-inspired adhesives, and the best explanation yet of Van der Waals forces.
Still no idea how Vander waals forces which are supposed to be the weakest forces are able to life heavy stuff like that. Like polar molecular solids are held together by dipole induced dipole attraction forces as well and they're soft and here I'm seeing vander waal forces lift heavy stuff. These two things don't go along.
I've always thought that wander walls forces are very weak. I knew that it acted between the atomic sheets of graphite and holds the entire thing together but after seeing this video I think completely different about this amazing force which could handle sheer strength. Imagine how much strong it would be if we were to replicate it exactly like that of a gecko has!
Just for clarification all forces between partial charged atoms are called van der waals forces what he is specifically referring to is called London dispersion forces
@Choas_Lord_512 um could you explain why then? I suppose I'm a braindead layman cause I don't really get what was incorrect about my explanation. There's all sorts of different stuff I didn't mention but at least in asexual single celled organisms what was wrong with my explanation? Also I don't think I ever claimed mutations act as an upgrade, my comment specifically says that mutations aren't good or bad, just changes which can influence the fitness of organisms, and that sometimes those changes increase the fitness of offspring. edit: also mutations often come with both benefits and drawbacks, (though mostly drawbacks), but occasionally those drawbacks aren't enough to counterbalance the benefits edit again: even in single celled asexual organisms there's sometimes other mechanisms at play but the fundamental idea remains the same: source of randomness + environmental pressure = gradual change to fit the environment in offspring
I really thought those little ridges would be going the other direction, and gripping into whatever they were holding! But this is even more interesting. Looking forward to where this tech could lead in a few years/decades!
Amazing. Definitely want to see some climbing- but definitely as equally interested in real commercial uses- there's definitely applications in emergency self rescue type stuff- but what about something like picking up a car or a windshield? I love the idea of conveyers/sprag type deals. This is neat stuff. even just as a tape to stick to itself in a strip- in theory it could be used to wrap things, and then be released by a brief pulsed torsional shock.
Amazing! Back in march 2015 I happened to walk into Mark Cutkosky's lab and talked to him. I saw some students playing with a heap of plastic geckos next to a wall panel. Now I know what he was up to then.
When I was between 8-10ish, I got a children’s science magazine and I clearly remember it talking about how someday there would be self-healing plastic, and how we’d be able to print physical objects, and how a material was being developed that could protect a rose from a blowtorch with just a thin layer. Now, about 20 years later, if I bought a piece of aerogel (which is amazingly something one can do for about $50), I would have all three of those inventions in my home.
Bro you know your science that's for sure. You're incredibly entertaining to listen to. I love science but I'll be the first one to say I wish I had made it a bigger part of my life.
Man I remember when I first got my gecko I was amazed with his sticky non sticky hands haha. Crazy how we have to work so hard to creat something like this while we have animals that are born with it. Amazing stuff
Incredible. This has been one of the most fascinating videos I've seen in a long time. Imagine all the things we can do with that gecko tape! I wonder when we'll be able to buy it, I'd love to do some experimenting.
The way the short for this video is being used is the best way I’ve ever seen a short being used. Basically a sample of the first part of the video, instead of some 1/30 part short compilation. Would be great if all TRvidrs did it this way.
YES! Thank you for this! I’ve been watching for someone to talk about van der waals force! I saw a study from MIT where students actually held up a dictionary with a 1cm^2 square of carbon nanotubes. Super cool tech. Didn’t realized someone had worked van der waals into a tape.
Damn. You are the type of channel that inspires me to research nature ( Im studying biotechnology, due to the wonders of nature, which I often learn from these type of channels )
This video mentioned the Van der Waals force to explain how tapes shaped like a gecko's one stick to objects, but you can more simply. It's a friction. So another tips you can know here is that friction is a culmination of Van der Waals force, which is the tiniest interaction that particles can have.
@Jace White You foucs on just a different aspect of friction. It is a macroscopic property, so many thing can contribute to. For example, what you mentioned is the interaction between the particles of one side, which is called chemical bonds. The point is, even if a surface is perfectly smooth, there will be a friction. Maybe, Veritasium mentioned this ideal friction only, to simplify his explanation.
So your saying regardless of the gravity applied to the object, without the Van DER Waals force there would be no friction? I disagree, if you rub 2 pieces of sand paper together, the resistance you feel is the geometry of the 2 pieces interacting with each other, like interlocking puzzle pieces.
Great video! My son has 4 crested geckos and it’s amazing how they stick to and climb on the glass of their enclosure. Their feet feel funny too and it’s always made us wonder how
Hello Derek, I have an idea for a video. In chemistry, I learned that in redox reactions, electrons transfer, but it was never quite explained how or why exactly they do it. I would love a video about this process, which I found out is explained using quantum mechanics. That way, I might finally understand how the electrochemical potential table forms and why different organisms are an-/aerobic on a deeper level. If you (not Derek) read this and also wonder how this works, I would appreciate if you could give this comment a push so that Derek sees it. Thanks, keep up the good work, and greetings from Switzerland. Alejandro
As far as I know from what I studied, the diffrent values for electric potentials in the table happen because you are measuring the equilibrium metals establish in their respective solutions M2+ + 2e- M if the equilibrium lies to the right with respect to the hydrogen electrode it is positive and if it lies to the left negative When you have 2 cells connected each half cell is going to have their own particular possition of equilibrium meaning one will oxdise more readily than the other so the predominant reaction of that particular metal with its solution would be M -> M2+ + 2e- since in this half cell more electrons are produced the electrode becomes negative (anode) and thus the other electrode to which it is connected is possitive with respect to the anode and so electrons travel to the cathode, reducing the metals in solution and they are deposited in the cathode the reaction would be M2+ + 2e- -> M for example This is a brief summary of what happens and could be explained better and you could go more in detail but I hope this helps you to get an idea of what is happening
It would be interesting to know more about the material. How resilient is it? How it works on natural surfaces like rocks, leather, cloth? And the most important, where to buy climbing gloves? :)
I really hope this gets improved upon cause this would be so useful for many different things. (Like not needing a ladder maybe) But also I can't be the only one who has dreamed of climbing like a gecko for fun (or spiderman/xenomorph) xD
This reminds me of the phone book mythbusters episode where it took two tanks to pull two phone books apart that had their pages interwoven with each other. If I recall, the physics behind that is just simple friction, though I guess it would be the same forces applied here? It's not like the phone book pages were electrostatically charged, so I assume the force holding them together were also Van Der Waal.
Great video Derek! I have a question though, if you mentioned earlier that if you invert the Apple over then the sticky pad let's the Apple go. Which means that in order to unstick those pads we need to apply force in any direction except that of just the parallel direction, so how do geckos still stick on roofs?
Hey veritasium I love your videos on such topics and I wanted that you should also make video about the concept of 10% rule of energy transfer in trophic levels thank you
Amazing! Extremely interesting research done there! For a long time now I wanted to test that kind of stuff for attaching prosthetics to limbs. And yes, please do climb a building with it!
This is so ground breaking if you ask me, there are many practical application. I wonder the tremendous progress we'll have if we can replicate the interesting parts of nature. Finally, a Spidey suit, next one should be Iron man's
Great video Derek! I have a question though, when performing all those heavy tasks like pulling the car, how was the material able to handle those force because the material itself is made up of silicone right? Which I know is tensile, but not that much! So how did it withstand those forces?
I’m guessing that the backing material used provides added structural support. Some polymer films can have tensile strengths of 1,000s+ of psi! (I’ve seen some up to 20,000 psi!) However it’s also worth mentioning that towing a car across smooth flat ground may only require as little as 100 lbs of force since you only need enough force to overcome the initial rolling resistance
This guy has the coolest content and I love all his videos, you learn so much!!!! Stuff that you prob won't learn about anywhere else, this channel is phenomenal
Richard K Morgan, in Altered Carbon conceptualized a gecko suit which was used by Takeshi Kovacs for covert infiltration....pretty cool to see something like that in action.
That's so cool. It's amazing how something can be so simple but so complicated to replicate. And to be honest I still don't understand the part where it can pull a car... Unrelated, but when I saw the brilliant ad at the end, I realized something obvious: Artificial Intelligence is gonna be a mandatory subject in schools eventually. That's mindblowing to me. I've always postponed learning about neural networks and AI even though I was interested in it. Now, I _know_ I will end up learning how it works eventually, wether I like it or not lol
My grandfather has a PhD in zoology and biology. I'll never forget the day when he showed me a scientific journal entry with a picture of this and how fascinating they were to him. He is an ichthyologist, so it wasn't his area of expertise; however, there were always some facts he could add to a situation or story, and how he described that truly humbled me at the time and still does. I credit my grandfather for my curiosity and thank creators like you for making me extremely proud of him, highlighting fascinating things in our universe, and invigorating those who are hungry for more knowledge. Thank you.
@ConservativeRiot I used to be a devout Christian as well. I used to study the Bible quite a lot, and I still go to church every week (not by free will). My perspective changed and I no longer saw the religion the same way I did as a child. I'm now much happier and found a new way to appreciate life, so no need to convince me to go back. Thanks for being respectful, have a great day, just be mindful of where to talk about religion so that people are more willing to listen.
@Alexandrite I used to be an enemy of God as well. I hope he opens your eyes like He did mine. At least a couple people liked my comment. I can't help but to see God's wonderful design anymore and there's nothing wrong with pointing it out. Thank you, have a wonderful day.
I'd love some work gloves with this. As a machinist, holding on to metal parts with normal rubber gloves is incredibly tricky if there's any oil on the part or the gloves. I imagine making this stuff is still incredibly expensive though
Well that wouldnt work prolly if it had oil on the surface cuz it relies on vander walls force i.e. attraction between the atom of the gecko to the atoms at the surface of the hammer. So oil will basically be sliding and it might as well get stuck in between the ridges destroying the gecko tape
I've seen that kinda phenomenon with a certain type of plant that grows in the wild. It's probably got the same structure as the artificial gecko skin. When you brush your finger against its blade, it's going to stick and sting like it's got little sharp edges all along its area, but if you brush along, you don't feel anything. I think it's pretty similar.
Those are cool in their own right! They actually use microscopic barb like structures that grow in one direction, so that when you slide your hand or fingers along it in the same direction they grow, it feels slick and smooth with no resistance, but in the opposite direction every one of those barbs is digging in and causing that pain. No Van Der Waals forces to speak of, but it's a really interesting mechanism all the same!
3% That's how much of this video is accurately described by the title. This video, like all your other stellar content, was AWESOME! And I would have watched it even with the title "Using Synthetic Gecko Skin to Pull a Car".
Pop quiz: Do polar N2O and nonpolar CO2 liquids mix under a pressure chamber even though they have similar densities? If not, what would happen when you tried to make both liquids supercritical in the same chamber? If one were to be very rich and irradiate one of the molecules, N2O, with neutrons, would the density of enriched N2O be greater than normal CO2? Just a few thoughts.
I remember in one of my nanotechnology courses at university around 2012 one of the physics lecturers told us about people investigating this sort of technology. Amazing to see it in action.
✝️ LORD JESUS DIED & ROSE AGAIN TO PAY THE DEBT OF UR SIN! ✅By Faith in the sacrifice God has made are we saved from the penalty of sin! 🔵Turn from your sin that leads to death & accept His Gift that leads to eternal Life! 💜We are all sinners that need God. No one can say they are perfect to be able to pay their debt of sin. This is why only God could pay the penalty for us, that is merciful Love!
Kinda shows how University can have a place, but it ends up being a fraction of our lives in many cases. Uni didn't really say we'd move on and never need them, for reasons.
I think the chain ladder acts similar to the mould effect chain thing. it looks like the ladder on the left gains a tiny bit of acceleration when the leading edge of the ladder rung hits the table.
This exact effect was the reason I studied materials science in my masters. It's just incredible how far we have come, that we are able to use such effects on materials that *.*
@Sean Kane as they say in the video, what they can do is a very raw bad approx of what a gecko can. I would say they do not more than a mere 5-10% (i am being optimistic) and so, the possibilities are HUGE. We need to learn how to build something purely from a DNA.. like a cell does. Crispr is great to modify DNA, but to have a sheet of "gecko foot" made from the Gecko DNA (and then even improving it!) is pure science fiction nowadays. Having this capability will open the "God door" with unimaginable possibilities. We are so so far from that (50 years?)
@Enorazza Right? I'm so curious how much better is the gecko than the artificial version, considering we seem to be able to fill the same surface area. Is it something like 80% as good, 95% as good? What if it were like half as good as the gecko? Crazy to think of the possibilities were that the case and we just need to iterate on the processes
@Gladius I'd imagine so if the vinyl sheets mentioned use this force, but I have noticed some that are noticeably sticky one one side so perhaps some indeed use a thin adhesive in some fashion
I _LOVE_ that you've published this. My nine year old has started a new theme at school this month, called biomimicry... I'm going to show this video to her; she'll love it.
@6th Wilbury Yeah, I think it depends on the parents, to be honest. I mean, if you are always talking about things you're fascinated with, kids will naturally be attracted to those things as well. The "Did you know" kind of facts are super popular with kids and even kids TV shows dance around this topic all the time. We give it a fancy name as an adult, but the idea that inventors design things inspired from the designs of nature isn't a difficult concept to grasp. Did you know that the kingfisher's beak inspired the Shinkansen? Did you know that sonar in submarines was an idea that we got from the design of sonar in bats or dolphins? Did you know that those Airplane winglets are inspired by the upturned wings of an Eagle? Did you know that a spider's silk scaled up to 1cm could catch a jumbo jet in flight? Kids books are FILLED with little factoids like that and they have units in school that actually teach it. Kids are naturally curious and learn about the world around them literally and so biomimetics is a useful tool OFTEN used by many science teachers... because of the way that children rely on literal interpretations of the world around them to learn as opposed to how adults are able to more easily digest abstract concepts. I just don't think it's all that uncommon.
@CↃ Because if that was my child, I'd be proud of my child. And want to make them happier. And share the happiness with others, because the world is a slightly better place having known.
@6th Wilbury 9-year olds are very often interested in biomimicry. How could you not be? It's adults that take the amazing designs around us for granted... maybe because they were taught to just blow it off as a product of random accidents.
@CↃ No kidding. My kids had a unit on biomimicry as well. It's pretty much a standard thing that they teach in elementary school these days. I have helped BOTH my daughters still in regular old public elementary schools do projects on the amazing designs of the world around us. Everything from the remarkable strength to weight ratio of the Toucan's beak, to the kingfisher's beak's inspiration for Japan's bullet trains. Intelligent humans design things around them all the time... and although generally far inferior to the the natural designs around us, still impressive and starts with curiosity.
It would be interesting to see if it holds almost as well in vacuum. It might be that under athmospheric conditions the air between the pad an the surface is pushed out almost completely and that the air pressure on the outside pushes the pad to the surface.
Somebody made a video once where they dropped a gauge block on another gauge block in a vacuum. They wanted to see if simply "pushing out" the air between the blocks was all that was needed to make them stick together. Their conclusion: The blocks were not sticking. Eliminating the air did absolutely nothing. Similarly it doesn't take much effort to show the reverse: Putting two stuck-together gauge blocks in a vacuum doesn't unstick them either.
Kinda makes me wonder in terms of prosthetics if it could be used to give a better grip feedback. Rather than crushing an object due to mechanical forces. You'd need only a little friction force.
I wonder if anyone thought of putting it on tracks? Would an army tank track area equal enough area to support the force created by the weight of an army tank traveling vertically up a wall? Great video, enjoyed.
I know your rods of God episode was a total bomb, but I too was interested in that premise. So I'm glad you dabbled in it. This was a great episode, very cool gecko skin.
I feel like this would be relatively easy to make with the right setup. Even a desktop cnc fitted with an incredibly high quality blade should be able to produce this surface directly on the "part". It would require a lot of custom toolpath work, but that shouldn't be too difficult. Or to make a mold, some sort of thermoplastic could be held at a temperature that keeps it soft for cutting, then cooled to have a more durable surface. Wish I had more time to work on this. It would be a fun project.
The applications for this in the trad climbing community could be great. In trad climbing, gear is placed in cracks and faults in the rock to catch a potential fall, but this isn't really possible currently on flatter surfaces with less cracks for gear placement. With this it could be possible to place gear on a flat surface, let it sit there while the climber climbs, and catch their fall if they do. It would completely open up a whole world of harder trad climbs that haven't been possible due to lack of gear placements for protection.
I hope one day this technology is adapted as plasters/medical tape. My newborn requires an NG tube for feeding and we have to tape it to his cheek, but he is allergic to adhesive and we are now in a battle over managing his poor skin degrading. It makes me happy to think how future families in similar situations could benefit from this concept.
I literally had this idea like, organically the other day while getting baked except it was a tarantula pad. Like imagine if you had literal gloves covered in those micro hairs as well as a, like, an offset roofers platform for each foot. You could def climb a building
@notahotshot Given I actively factored communication out of that statement, I'm definitely not confusing the two. Only the first point I made was about ease of communication. My second statement - the one you quoted - was not about communication. Plus precision doesn't come from standardization; ease of communication does, which you supposedly think has nothing to do with precision. On top of which, you're mis-attributing the word nomenclature. What you call the measurements is irrelevant to how the system works or which values are used for scaling. The odd nomenclature doesn't reinforce or dissolve either of our points, so I don't see why you feel the need to remind me of it. As for the creation of the metric system - people make new systems because it's easier to get people to bandwagon onto a new thing than it is to change how they use an old thing. I'm aware that it had nothing to do with precision at the time, which is why I didn't make that argument. On the other hand, that doesn't mean that metric - as we know it today - is less precise. The reason Imperial is naturally less precise is because every unit has it's an individual scalar value. Every time you have to translate between those scales, there's a risk of a translation error, which grows exponentially every time you switch unit. And that's not a communication thing - that's a maths thing. The same risk holds true for digital computation. You're clearly stuck on the idea of minutiae aspect of precision rather than accuracy, and if you want to say that the thou is more precise than a millimetre, then I'd agree (before reminding you of nanometres and all the other units smaller than 0.1 thou), but the Imperial system *as a whole* is imprecise when compared to the metric system *as a whole.*
@Samurai Pipotchi "That's naturally more precise." No, it's not. You're confusing ease of communication with precision within the system. Precision comes from standardization, and from how finely divided your measurements are, not how you name them. I can divide imperial measurements just as finely as you can divide metric. The issue with imperial was that the length of the measurements were not standardized. Rather than getting everyone to agree on how to define the length of a yard, a new measurement, the meter, was devised, and the base measurement defined. Then the measurement was later redefined multiple times. Because of the natural inaccuracy of the definitions used. The world could have just as easily standardized on imperial, if an agreement on how to define the measurements could have been reached. Note that I did say, in my previous comment, that the nomenclature could have been better.
@notahotshot Because it's true for a lot of us. I'm in the UK. Our tools use mm adjustments - just like almost every non-english speaking country. Trying to describe which metric adjustment you need while using imperial terms is going to lead to a natural imprecision. There's also the benefit that metric technically only has one unit of measurement and the terminology just specifies where we're putting the decimal place. That's naturally a more precise system than one that changes it's scaling based on which unit you're using.
@Samurai Pipotchi "Metric is necessary when it comes to precision measurements..." Why do people make this claim? I can divide imperial measurements in as fine an increment as needed to get as accurate a measurement as required. The nomenclature could have been better for the divisions, but the nomenclature has no effect on the level of accuracy possible.
Looking at the structure of Gecko feet reminds me of the structure of some mushrooms. I wonder if there would be a way to engineer a fungus that would grow in a pattern similar to gecko feet to get the more sophisticated design?
I remember people telling me gecko tape would NEVER be possible, even the guy inventing this tape says so, but he still persisted and they developed something that comes pretty close to it. This is amazing! Another dream come true
They did think of it a long time before. I remember watching a documentary mentioning it (the idea of making a gecko-like skin) around 10 years ago (and the documentary itself wasn't that new at the time either). Obviously, they needed a lot of time to progress this far
Isn’t this the reason that sticking your tongue on a cold metal surface will make your tongue stick? The moisture that your tongue is positively saturated in touches the metal and fills in all the grooves between you and the metal, and then that once liquid bond becomes quickly frozen because the layer is so thin, creating a solid bond between the two that has almost zero space in the middle that’s not being taken up by either the metal, the tongue, or the frozen moisture between the two.
This seems very similar to how the gloves of mission impossible work, where Ethan scales the glass building. Except where that glove fails if the battery fails, this doesn't. Physics is so cool 😃
Years on after leaving school and I am continuously impressed by the quality of the content you provide for free that far exceeds most institutions. It’s just amazing how simply you explain concepts in a quarter of an hour.
I wonder if they could use the Nano 3D printer to make smaller legs on the gecko skin. Supposedly, the printer can create parts around 500 nanometers, though the materials the Karlsruhe Institute are currently printing in may not be viable, it could be worthwhile having both labs work together on the project. Could be a significant improvement on the wax mold method and could be more reliable to 3D print than to use a razor. [edit] If they 3D print the mold, not 3D print with liquid silicone.
The stickiest non sticky material is a much better title! I saw the gecko title about two days ago, but it didn't catch me. Now, after watching the short video I needed to know what that was about.
I'm surprised how creative the team got when manufacturing the material/characterizing the force. I thought it would be closer to the methods of silicon etching and nanostructure growing
@hazonku I suspect a metal mold will not release the silicone without micro-tears of the tiny ridges which will ruin the gripping properties. And at the tiny scale they are working in prohibits using a mold release agent which would take too much space. I think the main draw of using wax is that it will easily release and separate from the silicone once cured
You see a lot of brilliant engineering in these small systems. It's designed. It's all designed and engineered with a level of sophistication we can only dream of.
