Pretty awesome, right?
Well, I checked with my insect loving brother-in-law and this things is called an Argiope aurantia, and I noticed a very physics-y behavior of this little guy (which is actually a girl, because the males are way smaller and less cool looking). Watch what happens when she feels threatened:
So, what you see is (besides me calling this female spider a "he"), that the spider is aware of the natural frequency of oscillation of the web and is pushing at the resonant frequency in order to amplify the motion of the web. This allows her to appear bigger and more threatening to predators.
Can you identify the applied force and restoring force?
Can you count the oscillations in this video and tell me the natural period and frequency of the web (assuming it is the same as the harmonic frequency shown here)?
No comments:
Post a Comment