<photo: sunrise on spider web at MacRitchie Reservoir, Singapore>
spider silk is commonly known for its unusual strength, having been compared to steel and kevlar. this makes the spider web strong since it's made from spider silk. there's another property of spider silk - it's way of first softening and then stiffening when pulled - that gives the spider web it's special characteristic. it makes the spider web flaw-tolerant.
in a study by MIT, it was found that "spider webs, it turns out, can take quite a beating without failing. Damage tends to be localized, affecting just a few threads — the place where a bug got caught in the web and flailed around, for example. This localized damage can simply be repaired, rather than replaced, or even left alone if the web continues to function as before. “Even if it has a lot of defects, the web actually still functions mechanically virtually the same way,” Buehler says. “It’s a very flaw-tolerant system.”
we can learn from the spider web - build strength, tolerance for when things go wrong and resilience.
“when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion” Ethiopian proverb