Spider-Man

[TheBigDog]

This may be a silly question, but what is the maximum speed that Spider man would be able to acheive when traveling by web-slinging? What would the variables be to calculate this? My guesses are:

 

• Spiderman's weight
  
• The elasticity of the webs
  
• The length of the webs he swings from
  
• The distance he travels on each web
  
• The angle of the web to his direction of travel
  

 

Am I missing anything here?

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

Well, if nothing else... wind resistance.

 

Obstacles would play a role too. How many webs must be slung to get from point A to point B? Just one? Maybe two? It'd take longer if it took like 20...

[TheBigDog]

Lets say it is the time needed to travel a mile. Tall buildings on both sides of a straight road. The building fronts are say... 150' apart. And there more to it. What about the speed that the webing leaves his wrist? And should we consider his ability to accellerate himself faster than gravity does by using his strength to pump like on a swing?

 

Bill

[Racoon]

You Did not just start a thread on Spiderman! :angel:

 

It just so happens i can answer all your questions, except these Physics ones!

 

Do you have kids that are in Spiderman phase??

 

I'll look into it!

[TheBigDog]

My 3 year old slings invisible webs, attempts wall crawling for real, and was very confused that his fingers don't stick to walls since he IS Spiderman!

 

Bill

[CraigD]

Like any pendulum, he reaches maximum speed at the lowest point in his swing. Ignoring friction of various kinds, that speed will be (in m/s) about (19.6*H)^.5, where H is the difference between his starting height and the low point of his swing. Notice that Spidey’s mass, the elasticity of his web, its angle to the point of attachment, etc, don’t matter – only how far he drops in his initial swing.

 

Once up to maximum speed, the best technique Spidey could follow to get across town in a hurry is to sling web as fast as he can, to minimize rising above his low point. The higher he rises, the slower he goes. Lots of swooping and high ballistic arcs, while cool looking, reduce his cross-country speed.

 

Since Spidey experiences air resistance and other frictional losses, eventually his travel speed will drop to nearly nothing, requiring him to climb/jump/whatever to a high spot and start the process over.

 

So, if Spidey’s in a city with plenty of 200 meter tall highrises, he could manage a hard-to-outrun 60 m/s (135 MPH) speed. In my nearby metropolis of Washington, DC, where by law few buildings exceed 25 meters, he’d barely be able to manage 22 m/s (50 MPH) – not fast enough to keep up with yours truly (if I manage to hit the traffic lights just right).

 

Being all super-strong and fast, Spidey would probably not want to swing as much as bounce off of buildings, shoot webs horizontally and propel himself with quick yanks, catapult himself slingshot fashion, and other jerky but super-fast maneuvers. Or maybe just run and jump, saving on webbing.

[Kayra]

Unless of course his web has the property of contracting as soon as it sticks to a structure. Say, a chain reaction starting from the point of impact that causes the webbing to become 10-30% shorter.

 

Or better yet, as tensile pressure is placed on the webbing, it reacts by shrinking. This would likely generate a some heat, but would only have to be a one time occurence. In effect, he is harnessing the chemical energy of the webbing.

 

Any of that possible?

[BluesMan]

The web may be limited to the characteristics seen in spiders with modifications from the human DNA.

 

So what special abilities would our DNA impart to the web?

[TheBigDog]

Unless of course his web has the property of contracting as soon as it sticks to a structure. Say, a chain reaction starting from the point of impact that causes the webbing to become 10-30% shorter.

 

Or better yet, as tensile pressure is placed on the webbing, it reacts by shrinking. This would likely generate a some heat, but would only have to be a one time occurence. In effect, he is harnessing the chemical energy of the webbing.

 

Any of that possible?

There are plenty of examples where he uses his webbing as a slingshot to propel himself great distances. I would be worried about that myself. As I go through the bottom of my swing, the webbing stretches, so I need to account for that so that I swing to low and hit something, like the ground. But the recoil of the webbing could give extra velocity on the upswing.

 

It ain't easy being Spiderman!

 

Bill

[Turtle]

___The round-headed-kid says in the Ultimate Spiderman game his maximium speed on a web is 45 MPH.:hihi:

[CraigD]

The web may be limited to the characteristics seen in spiders with modifications from the human DNA.

A studious fan of Spider Man would note that his original webbing was purely technological – wrist-worn gadgets designed and built by Peter Parker, who is a brilliant engineer. Without these, he still has super strength, agility, the ability to cling to smooth surfaces (using some sort of intermolecular force), and “spider senses”, gained from the bite of a radioactive spider. Peter can not only make on-the-fly adjustments to the ejected webbing, but change vials in it to use webbing with special qualities, or even shoot other kinds of liquid.

 

In the 2002 movie, the mechanical web shooters are replaced by rather creepy glandular orifices in Peter’s wrists, while the clinging ability is no longer magnet-like, but due to tiny barbed spines, Peter is no longer such a clever gadget maker, and the spider is no longer radioactive, but genetically engineered.

 

Seems to me the original web shooters were better than the 2002 ones – more versatile, upgradeable, and refillable – but the biological ones seem more popular with the fans, so eventually the comic contrived an issue to equip Spidey with the glandular versions.

 

All this makes sense when you consider that, when Spiderman came out in the early 1960s, almost no layman had heard of DNA, but nearly all of them had heard of radioactivity. By 2003, practically everybody had heard of DNA, and knew that exposure to radiation is far more likely to kill a spider than give it a super-power creating bite.

[CraigD]

___The round-headed-kid says in the Ultimate Spiderman game his maximium speed on a web is 45 MPH.:hihi:

Who you gonna believe, some Marvel “reference” book, or Isaac Newton?

 

Several bungie jumping sites claim claim to be able to swing you at better than 60 MPH. Surely a superhero can do better than us mere mundanes?

[Racoon]

Agree with CraigD once again..

 

Peter got bit by radioactive spider, but He had to develop his own web shooters! :) (not Organic!)

 

It is a big burden on his Freelance Photographer Salary from the Daily Bugle!!!

 

His teaching salary doesn't pay much either...:hihi:

 

I don't know how he maintains a Super-model in Mary Jane???

It must be that Arachnid Sexual prowess..