Why Thanos couldn’t have snapped his fingers while wearing the Infinity Glove

The Marvel Cinematic Universe was dramatically altered at the end of Avengers: Infinity War with an infamous snap of Thanos’ fingers. But could the intergalactic warlord have managed to snap his fingers at all while wearing that cumbersome metal Infinity Glove? That question inspired a new paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, exploring the biomechanics of the finger snap, particularly the role of friction.

(Spoilers for Infinity War below.)

“For the past few years, I’ve been fascinated with how we can snap our fingers,” said co-author Saad Bhamla, an engineer at Georgia Tech. “It’s really an extraordinary physics puzzle right at our fingertips that hasn’t been investigated closely.”