This a pretty accurate tableau of my bedroom floor (almost wrote flaw, Freudian slip maybe?) at all times. Textbooks and reference books, abandoned, slide out from under the bed covers (my place of choice for all work) and come to rest on the floor. Lingerie advances, in it's clean form, almost to my designated lingerie draw but falls short. Worn lingerie gets flung across the room in a spontaneous fit, one born from a last minute need for bedtime, and joins it's comrades. On my bedroom floor my two greatest loves, Lingerie and Physics, meet and join forces in the art of guilt tripping (and just plain tripping me up). But this is the only time, so far in my twenty years of life, that these two subjects, have come together. Until about an hour ago, when i read Petite and Plentiful's introduction to Kellie K Apparel.
Kellie K Apparel have been on my twitter feed for a while, promoting their upcoming strapless bra, but i've never taken too much notice. Plain strapless bras don't make for the most interesting tweets and i have a pretty darn good strapless bra anyway. Let's forget it's actually a bikini top for now. P&P however mentioned that these particular strapless bras, which are still in the prototype and funding phase of their manufacture, utilise "GeckTeck", which is derived from the science that allows Geckos to stick to walls. Now it's a common misconception that Geckos perform this feat of gravity defiance via vacuum theory. After a brief exchange on twitter i was very, very excited to discover that "GeckTeck" was indeed, correctly built upon the principal of Van Der Waal interactions between atoms. Kellie K Apparel have promised to release a video soon explaining some of the science behind their bra adhesive but i thought i'd have a crack at explaining the underlying principle of Van Der Waal interactions here too. In the hopes that some of my readers will find this application of Physics in lingerie production just as exciting as i do.
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| Van Der Waals Forces: Weak attractive forces between atoms or molecules which vary inversely as the sixth power of the interatomic or intermolecular distance, and are due to the momentary dipoles caused by the fluctuation in the electronic configuration of the atoms or molecules. |
Bit of a mouthful eh? And not very helpful for those who don't study physics (alright, or Chemistry). This isn't an easy principle to explain as it relies on a precursory knowledge of electric fields and atomic/molecular interaction so, if you're interested, there are some great resources i can guide you to for further study on this subject.
Van Der Waals interactions arise from fluctuating dipoles in atoms and molecules. Dipole fluctuations are a quantum mechanical manifestation and are electrostatic in nature.
What does this mean? In molecules or atoms electrons move around. Electrons are Leptons (fundamental particles) and have a charge of approximately -1e (or −1.602176565(35)×10−19 C to be a little more accurate). This means that when they move around, they create an excess of charge on one side of the atom or molecule. In an instant these electrons can move over to the opposite side and create and excess of flux over there instead. This phenomenon is called a fluctuating dipole. When electrons flow or move about with time they create an electric field and so this movement gives the molecule a temporary polarity. The electric field in this molecule will induce a dipole in any non-polar molecules it comes into contact with, creating a dipole moment. This dipole moment always manifests as an attractive force between the molecules. So these molecules will be attracted to each other and an equal or greater force will be needed to overcome the attraction. This attraction, known as Van Der Waals interaction, is what occurs between the spatula on geckos' legs and the wall.
And these are the exact same principles Kellie K Apparel use to create their "geckteck" adhesive which promises to keep a strapless bra in place on your body. Exciting, right? As it stands now these bras need a lot of funding to be put into production and have a kickstarter page where they hope to gain crowd funding. For me, this is an incredibly exciting application of a particularly boring branch of physics and i'm eager to see the development of this idea (and maybe one day own a Kellie K bra of my own!)
And these are the exact same principles Kellie K Apparel use to create their "geckteck" adhesive which promises to keep a strapless bra in place on your body. Exciting, right? As it stands now these bras need a lot of funding to be put into production and have a kickstarter page where they hope to gain crowd funding. For me, this is an incredibly exciting application of a particularly boring branch of physics and i'm eager to see the development of this idea (and maybe one day own a Kellie K bra of my own!)