Answer 1:
Yes and no; it depends on what kind of strength
you mean. There are two kinds of mechanical
strength: compressional strength and tensile
strength. Tensile strength is how strong the
material is when being stretched. For something
like a cable to hang something from, you want high
tensile strength. Compressional strength is how
well the substance resists being squished. For
something like an arch, you want compressional
strength. Hair is made out of protein.
Proteins, by and large, are great at tension and
awful at compression. For tensile strength, yes,
hair is stronger than steel. For compression,
well, feathers are made out of the same protein,
and you know how hard pillows are! |
Answer 2:
Here are typical ultimate strengths of
different materials when pulled.These can all vary
depending on purity: Nylon thread: 75
MPa
Human hairs: 200 MPa
Ordinary structural
steel: 400 MPa
Silk: 500 MPa
Spider web
(dragline): 1200 MPa
Piano wire steel: 2300
MPa
Carbon Nanotube: 62000 MPa
So it
looks like human hair is stronger than nylon but
weaker than almost any steel. Piano wire is much
stronger, and spider silk is in between. Carbon
Nanotube could be the strongest thing, although we
currently don't know how to make them longer than
about 1 mm. They're also super stretchy
before they break, which could be a good thing or
a bad thing, depending on what you want to use it
for.
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