In their recent presentation at the MIT Museum, “Reverberations: Spiders and Musical Webs,” Professor Markus Buehler and Tomás Saraceno, Visiting Artist at the MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology, discussed their research in materials and structures inspired by the intricate geometry of spider webs. Using the data from his digitally captured three-dimensional spider web, Saraceno reconstructed the web 16 times its original size for his installation, 14 Billions (Working Title). Buehler discussed the molecular-to-macroscopic structure of spider’s silk, and how art and engineering can function as mutually beneficial modes of discovery. Zhao Qin, a Research Scientist in CEE, presented a live demonstration of the analysis of Saraceno’s data with a computer model developed in Buehler’s lab, which revealed the elasticity and tension of the black widow’s web. The conversation was moderated by Professor John Ochsendorf. Read the Arts at MIT blog: https://arts.mit.edu/reverberations-spiders-and-musical-webs/