The reason why geckos were exhibited at the British House in Expo 2005 Aichi Japan was because an enterprise of U. K. had been developing a gadget called "Gecko Tape" which enables to move freely on a ceiling or wall like the reptile.
This item is looked forward to earnestly because, should it be materialized, it will extend the degree of freedom for astronauts in walking around freely in weightless outer space without tethers.
Geckos can move around on the wall or ceiling just like on the floor. They must have spectacular suckers on their feet, you may imagine. On the contrary, there are no suckers on their soles, but they show striped patterns only instead.
These striped patterns are, in fact, covered densely with fine hairs, in extent of a few hundreds of million hairs per square centimeter. Moreover, the tip of each hair is branched and so the gecko's feet are touching the wall or ceiling with an innumerable number of hairs.
Why they can move around freely on the wall or ceiling using them?
In fact, the hairs on the feet of gecko are extremely fine, which mean they contact at a great number of minute points on the wall so that the molecules constituting a hair and those of wall pull each other, or, in other words, the intermolecular forces work between them.
By the way, the intermolecular force is working also in the phenomenon that a pair of plate glasses are stuck firmly each other.
The "Gecko Tape" also is attempting to use the intermolecular force. Contrary to suckers, which are useless in air-less condition, the intermolecular force is looked forward to earnestly because it works perfectly even in outer space where there is no air. |
