If you've ever wondered what a spider web sounds like, here's your answer! Researchers at MIT’s Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics and artist Tomás Saraceno teamed up to create sonic structures based on the physical appearance of spider webs, as spiders rely heavily on sound to navigate the world.
"The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings," said engineer Markus Buehler of MIT. "They don't see very well, so they sense their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies."
The initial project with Saraceno and the researchers took place in 2019, but now according to Buehler they're taking things a step further. What if we understood these vibrations and could use them to talk to spiders?
"Now we're trying to generate synthetic signals to basically speak the language of the spider," Buehler said in an interview with Phys.
"If we expose them to certain patterns of rhythms or vibrations, can we affect what they do, and can we begin to communicate with them? Those are really exciting ideas."
Oh, and this is what a spider web sounds like. It's basically like Portal and Sunn O))) fell down the same flight of stairs.
