Today’s Solutions: March 16, 2025

Turns out the simple snap is a physics gold mine. Thanks to high-speed video footage from Georgia Tech in Atlanta, exactly how impressive the movement is has been exposed.

The research group, led by Saad Bhamla, actually took inspiration from Marvel’s 2018 smash hit Avengers: Infinity War. Thanos, the evil villain in the story, uses his superpower snap whilst wearing a metal glove to wipe out half of the universe. They wanted to investigate if a snap in such a rigid glove would even be possible. “We got into this heated debate, trying to understand if he could actually snap or not,” Bhamla said. “This is how this whole thing got started because we want to figure out the key ingredients required to snap our fingers.”

After recording the event, the results showed that the finger pads ability to compress is a key factor behind it. When adding lubrication into the equation, the snap fell short, emphasizing friction as a key parameter also. The report, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, showed the impressive seven millisecond time period of the snap – around 20 times as fast as a blink of the eye! The finger also accelerates at a rate of 1.6 million degrees per millisecond, three times the amount of a professional baseball player’s arm when pitching.

“Based on ancient Greek art from 300 B.C., humans may very well have been snapping their fingers for hundreds of thousands of years before that, yet we are only now beginning to scientifically study it,” said Bhamla. “This is the only scientific project in my lab in which we could snap our fingers and get data.” Understanding this mechanism isn’t just interesting, but also important for biomechanics. The forces behind the highspeed event may be able to be applied to high-tech prosthetic hands, creating more realistic and free flowing movements.

So the verdict on Thanos’ snap? The team tested the power and speed of the finger snap wearing thimbles, though the results fell short. The metal armor would have not provided enough friction or compressibility, resulting in sluggish snaps. In this round of physics vs supervillains, physics came out on top.

Source study: Journal of the Royal Society InterfaceThe ultrafast snap of a finger is mediated by skin friction

Solutions News Source Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

How to be a better conversationalist

A meaningful conversation is the best way to build a connection with someone, but simply conjuring up such a conversation is not always easy—especially ...

Read More

Don’t throw away that greasy pizza box! Recycle it

If you’ve long tossed your pizza boxes into the trash, figuring—along with many other Americans—that the grease and cheese leftover on the cardboard meant ...

Read More

A neuroscientist’s 4 favorite ways to decompress

Negative feelings have a way of creeping up on us, particularly if we find ourselves in an especially emotionally charged situation. If you find ...

Read More

Art preserves endangered flora in Himalayas—where conservation and culture co...

"In 2002, I was returning to Kalimpong in the eastern Himalaya region of India, and I found numerous trees had been cut down for ...

Read More