Page 84 - The Miracle in the Spider

84 THE MIRACLE IN THE SPIDER

sticky thread taut. Energy applied by buffeting winds or blundering
insects is not absorbed by the silk itself but by the entire system.
The core fibers do their share of the work as well. Plasticized and
therefore essentially like reinforced rubber, they benefit directly from the
fact that entropic elasticity is temperature dependent. Because the kinetic
energy of the prey is largely converted into heat, the thread warms up.
The heating increases entropy, and consequently the core fibers grow
stronger. The absorbed energy of the prey actually strengthens the
capturing thread and does so only because of the spider's clever trick of
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applying aqueous coating. On account of these features the spider's web
is the most pitiless trap in nature.
One may wonder whether these features are present or not in other
silken threads. What would happen if that were the case? For example
what would happen if load-bearing threads had the same stretching
capacity? Of course it would be quite difficult for the spider to carry itself
or its prey. In fact, the load-bearing silks, which make up the skeleton of
the web, in contrast to the catching threads, are coated in another
substance which protects them from water, because it is not necessary for
the load-bearing threads to be as elastic as the adhesive ones.
As has been seen, the spider makes coatings of different substances
for silks of various functions and construction as and when necessary.
Right, so how does the spider know about the coatings' different physical
and chemical effects? To maintain that the spider was trained, or came by
them by experience or coincidence flies in the face of intelligence and
common sense.
At this point just a little thought is sufficient to find the true answer.
In order for the spider to be able to plan all this, it would first have to
learn all the molecular structures, and the chemical mechanisms which
cause the liquid to solidify as we have described above. Then after
learning all this, it would then have to decide to go into production. After
reaching that decision it would then have to bring about certain changes
within its own body and set up the systems to make all these products.
This, of course, is an imaginary scenario. As we have seen, the