page_title: Suction cup
section_title: Artificial use
hierarchical_section_title: Suction cup / Artificial use
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Mobiles Navigationsgerät der Firma Navigon mit Saugnapfhalterung an Windschutzscheibe angebracht.
context_page_description: A suction cup, also known as a sucker, is a device or object that uses the negative fluid pressure of air or water to adhere to nonporous surfaces, creating a partial vacuum.
  Suction cups are peripheral traits of some animals such as octopuses and squids, and have been reproduced artificially for numerous purposes.
context_section_description: Artificial suction cups are believed to have first been used in the third century, B.C., and were made out of gourds. They were used to suction "bad blood" from internal organs to the surface. Hippocrates is believed to have invented this procedure.
  The first modern suction cup patents were issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office during the 1860s. TC Roche was awarded U.S. Patent No. 52,748 in 1866 for a "Photographic Developer Dipping Stick"; the patent discloses a primitive suction cup means for handling photographic plates during developing procedures. In 1868, Orwell Needham patented a more refined suction cup design, U.S. Patent No. 82,629, calling his invention an "Atmospheric Knob" purposed for general use as a handle and drawer opening means.
  Suction cups have a number of commercial and industrial applications:
  To affix objects to nonporous vertical surfaces such as refrigerator doors and tiled walls, and mooring ships
  To move large smooth objects such as panes of glass, automobile windscreens and raised floor tiles
  In toys such as Nerf darts
  In toilet plungers
  By urban climbers, to scale buildings with smooth exterior surfaces
  On May 25, 1981, Dan Goodwin, a.k.a. SpiderDan, scaled Sears Tower, the former world's tallest building, with a pair of suction cups. He went on to scale the Renaissance Center in Dallas, the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, the World Trade Center in New York City, Parque Central Tower in Caracas, the Nippon TV station in Tokyo, and the Millennium Tower in San Francisco.
caption: SatNav devices often ship with suction cup holders for mounting on windscreens.
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