We can’t do it, and most insects that do walk on the ceiling, do so by secreting oily adhesive fluids. Some spiders, however, walk upside down by getting the tiny hairs on their footpads to within a nanometre of whatever they are walking on, thereby attaching themselves to the surface by means of the van der Waals force.
A June 2004 article in the journal Smart Materials and Structures, describes the physics of how the spider species Evarcha Arcuata gets so close to the underlying surface atoms that the resulting induced dipole attraction can support up to 170x their own weight.
Geckos share this method of walking up walls, and a recently developed adhesive tape dubbed “Gecko Tape” was noted by Business 2.0 Magazine as one of the 10 technologies to watch in 2004. An average person should be able to stick to the ceiling by using enough Gecko Tape to cover the palm of one hand. Gecko Tape resembles Velcro, but without the other side, and with very tiny magnets instead of very small hooks.
Some companies are hoping to use these nanoscopic hairs to develop no-slip shoes and automobile tires.
Related posts:
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
You can also walk on the ceiling if you get bitten by a radioactive spider. I think it would be fun to walk on the ceiling, a good way to entertain the relatives at Thanksgiving.
This could pave the way for new track and field events: 100 meters on the ceiling, for example.
I know some people who did some walking on the ceiling during the 1960′s.