Math 312 - Applied Math handout # 2

Why are those drops on the spider’s web so evenly spaced?

Have you ever noticed beads of sticky substance regularly placed along the threads of a spider’s
web? That substance is the “glue” that spiders use to keep the unfortunate insects that get caught in
their webs from seeking pastures new. This ‘pearling’ phenomenon arises, as Philip Ball has noted in
The Self-Made Tapestry, not because the spider has painstakingly designed it so; rather it is a
consequence of the instability of cylindrical columns of liquid to undulations along its surface. The
basic idea behind all this is that given any small ‘waviness’ on the surface, the surface tension of the
liquid acts to accentuate this curvature, and the result is that each undulation is pulled into a ‘blob’
isolated from its companions. They are strung out like pearls and the unwitting insects are caught, to
be captured by the sticky blobs and eaten at a later date. It is interesting to note that the spider only
lays down the sticky substance on the spiral threads; the radial ones, constructed first, are not sticky,
so that the spider can move rapidly from the perimeter to the center when lunch arrives.

This instability was studied by Lord Rayleigh at the end of the nineteenth century, and for that
reason it is sometimes referred to as the Rayleigh instability. It should not be confused with another
phenomenon, the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which is associated with adjacent fluids of different
densities in a gravitational field. An interesting feature of many fluid-dynamical (and other)
instabilities is that while it may occur (as here) for all wavelengths of undulation (or a least a
continuous subset), there is usually a particular wavelength λ (or equivalently, a wavenumber
k = 2π/λ) that is the most unstable. This means that wave-like perturbations with this wavelength
depart from the cylindrical form (in this instance) most rapidly in time. It is this critical wavelength
λ c that determines the size and separation of the droplets along the spider thread. It is essentially this
same instability that is responsible for the break-up into droplets of a thin non-turbulent stream of
water issuing from a tap (see figure 1(a)), although the presence of gravity does tend to accelerate the
instability by ‘tearing’ the droplets away from the stream. Melting fuse wire (as in the old-time
fuses) is subject to the same effects. Ball explains clearly how such pattern-forming processes may
be initiated by abruptly-occurring instabilities: “Generally an instability sets in when some critical
parameter is surpassed...Two common aspects of pattern-forming instabilities are that they involve
symmetry-breaking...and that they have a characteristic wavelength, so that the features of the
pattern have a specific size.” In the present case, the symmetry that is broken is the cylindrical
symmetry of the liquid about the axis of the thread.
 Fig.1(a): The “pearling” phenomenon

To discuss this instability in mathematical terms, consider a cylinder of liquid (or soap film) of
radius a, and ignore gravitational forces; the fact that the figure is drawn vertically is of no
significance. Let the axis of symmetry be the x-axis, and denote the radial direction by r. Now we
allow the column to be perturbed by a small periodic or undulatory disturbance of wavelength λ
(wavenumber k), so that its radius r is deformed as a function of axial position x in the following
manner:

r = a + b cos 2πx = a + b cos kx, b ≪ a. (1)

λ
 Fig.1(b): Notation for equation (1)

The strong inequality b ≪ a means that the disturbance is really small; it changes the ambient
radius a by only a small relative amount (this essentially reduces our problem to a linear one as we
shall see shortly). The curvature at any point is associated with a pressure, compensating differences
in surface tension. Referring to the diagram of the now-corrugated cylinder (figure 1(b)), note that
this system is stable (i.e. the uniform cylindrical shape is restored) if the pressure at points like A is
greater than the pressure at points like B. This is because the pressure will tend to be equalized, and
this will induce the opposite curvature at these points, restoring the column towards its original
non-perturbed shape.

For any given point on the liquid surface, the maximum possible radial extension under this
perturbation is R 1 = a + b; in the perpendicular direction (parallel to the axis of symmetry) the radius
of curvature (as any calculus book will demonstrate) is

 
2 3/2 −1
R2 = 1 + dr ⋅ d2r . (2)
dx dx 2
For sufficiently small initial deformations we may assume that |dr/dx| ≪ 1, so
−1
R2 ≈ d2r . (3)
dx 2
From the form of the perturbation, it follows that
 d 2 r = −k 2 b cos kx ≤ k 2 b, (4)
dx 2
so at the point of greatest extension (e.g. A), the maximum pressure above the external (atmospheric)
pressure is

σ 1 + 1 =σ 1 + k2b . (5)
R1 R2 a+b
Similarly at points like B, the minimum pressure difference above the external is

σ 1 − k2b . (6)
a−b
Therefore the pressure difference between points like A and B is

σ 1 − 1 + 2k 2 b = σ 2k 2 b − 2b ≈ 2bσ k 2 − 12 , (7)
a+b a−b a2 − b2 a
since by hypothesis b ≪ a. This pressure difference is positive when ka > 1, or 2πa = λ c > λ.
From our earlier discussion this corresponds to a stable situation; any disturbance with λ < λ c tends
to damp out. On the other hand, if λ > λ c , the critical wavelength, then the cylindrical column
becomes unstable, causing the sticky thread to fragment into well-defined drops. Thus instability
occurs if the wavelength is too large or the column is too narrow, according to the above criterion. It
must be pointed out that this analysis is only sufficient to describe the onset of instability; a detailed
study of the subsequent instability (for which we have only employed the waving of hands) requires
a fully nonlinear analysis. It is interesting to note that this instability can be induced in a narrow
stream of water flowing from a tap by placing a vibrating tuning fork close to the stream; if the
frequency is low enough, then the corresponding corrugations induced on the surface of the stream
will break up into droplets. And this is often what is seen on freshly-constructed spider webs!