3 ms·

[Golden orb spider silk is] five to six times stronger than steel by weight... Insanely cool.

• ars 17y ago
  If you look at steel under a microscope you see discontinuities, and grains and other things. Spider silk however is totally uniform and made almost atom by atom, that's why it's so much stronger. I believe it's even stronger than kevlar.
  • electromagnetic 17y ago
    IIRC it isn't stronger than kevlar, it's roughly equal, however many of the properties of spider silk are more desirable. I believe the first is that it is more elastic than kevlar, allowing it to more easily absorb the impact of a bullet and spread the load. It is significantly more flexible than kevlar, meaning it can be used to make fully armoured bodysuits (instead of using overlapping plates), quite literally pants and jackets could be made out of it comfortably. Spider silk also has one bonus benefit to it in that it's antiseptic, but it also supposedly binds into a wound preventing bleeding and acting as a natural gauze. This would mean that not only could it save your life by stopping the bullet, but if you got knifed you could actually use your body armour as a first aid kit.