Skip to main content

We Can Hold on to Glass Thanks to Sweat

Although it may seem small, our very fingerstips have evolved to be better. Our fingers have ridges to allow for a better grip on rough surfaces like wood and cloth. These ridges are not designed to increase the grip on something more smooth. This is where the sweat glands come to play. The sweat glands shown in the video produce sweat roughly 20 seconds after your skin comes into contact with a glass surface. This sweat softens the keratin in the skin and allows for the ridges that make up your fingerprint to flatten out. This allows for a better grip on the smooth glass surface. The research done on this included a glass prism and a camera which allowed for the researchers to actually see the sweat being produced. When tested with rubber, the production of sweat was so quick that it could not be seen on camera. All of this has to do with friction and how our body uses friction for our benefit. The formula for friction at the bottom includes the value μk which represents the amount of friction between two objects depending on their texture. For instance, the value for μk would be greater if it was between two two rough objects than if it was between two smooth ones. This analysis of the fingers has practical applications to technology and prosthetics. If scientists know how our fingers react to glass, they could improve the touchscreen experience for smartphone users. In addition, knowing this can improve the capabilities of prosthetic arms while making prosthetics more and more human-like. 
​k

F​k​​=μ​k​​F​n​​

The friction coefficient μk is helpful in understanding the amount of friction between two given objects. The higher the number, the more friction there is between two objects. Some objects that are expected to be slippery like ice sliding on ice do in fact have a low friction coefficient. The coefficient for ice on ice is the low number of 0.02-0.09. On the other hand, two objects with an expected high friction is rubber with rubber. This has a friction coefficient of 1.16. Despite these being somewhat obvious, other friction coefficients are less obvious such as silver with silver. These two substance sliding would seem to be an easy glide, but these have a high coefficient of 1.4. With this in mind, it can be concluded that the friction between skin and glass is increased with the recreation of sweat making the skin less rough. 


http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2017/09/25/sweat-enhanced-grip/#.We5Qoa3MyRs

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/forces-newtons-laws/inclined-planes-friction/a/what-is-friction

http://www.pnas.org/content/114/41/10864.full

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Physics of Spiderman

Over this past weekend after I finished working on my homework, I decided to relax and watch a few movies before going asleep. Among the movies I watched was Spider-Man 3 from 2007 and despite the movie flaws I was interested by the scenes that showed Spider Man shooting through the sky with the use of his webs that come out of his wrists. Due to this, I decided to make my blog post about the physics of Spider-Man's slingshot. After doing some research, I discovered just how much information there is on the physics of Spider-Man and how elements of Spider-Man can be used as examples for most topics learned in mechanics. For this investigation, I will not be using the horrible cliche and terrible CGI infested mess that Spider-Man 3 is but instead the all around superior Spider-Man movie of Spider-Man 2 to investigate the physics of Spider-Man's web propelled slingshot.  I want to talk about what happens in terms of physics when Spider-Man launches himself across a dista...
Post a Comment
Read more

Physics of Sound Dampeners and Active Noise Cancellation

Physics of Sound Dampeners and Active Noise Cancellation Sound dampening foam panels in a recording studio. ANC headphones worn by pilots and/or passengers in consumer aviation aircraft.  Acoustic treatment of soundscapes has grown alongside the sound production industry. Whether through absorption panels, diffusors and cloud panels to treat a space or headphones placed directly over the ears of listeners, acoustic treatment comes in many forms. Environments are treated acoustically to absorb excess sound to prevent sound levels from crossing a threshold above which the desired goal cannot be had. Before getting into sound dampening, we must discuss sound. Sound is produced when an object vibrates (a form of oscillation) and temporarily displaces nearby air molecules causing a wave effect as the displaced molecules collide with their neighboring molecules. Sound waves are fluctuations in pressure as the initial displacement of molecules experiences collisions that in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Physics of Black Holes...Or Lack Thereof

Isabella Jacavone To comprehend how the universe works, we must dwell into the most basic building blocks of existence; matter, energy, space, and time. NASA's  Physics of the Cosmos program involves cosmology, astrophysics, and fundamental physics intended to answer questions about the elusiveness of complex concepts such as black holes, neutron stars, dark energy, and gravitational waves. In this blog post, I'd like to elaborate on a subject that is very intriguing  to me; Black holes. And more specifically, what would happen if we got near one. A black hole is anything but a hole, but rather an immense amount of matter compacted into an extremely small area. A black hole is caused when, hypothetically, a star four times more massive than our sun collapses into a sphere no bigger than 600 square km. To put that in perspective, that's about the size of New York City. B lack holes were predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which showed that when a...
Post a Comment
Read more