Scientists have discovered that the trousers in the film titled 'The Wrong Trousers', which let the person wearing them walk on walls and ceilings, are scientifically possible but one will be able to do so only for a short period of time.

In the film, released in 1993, Gromit receives a pair of trousers which are made by NASA from Wallace for his birthday. These trousers allow the person wearing them to walk up walls. Physics students from the University of Leicester have found that scaling walls and ceilings would indeed be possible.

The fourth year students from the department of physics and astronomy examined the amount of suction that is required to allow a grown-up man wearing the trousers to walk on the ceiling. They calculated that if the vacuum generator in the boots of the trousers is powerful enough, it would allow a level of suction that would make people see the world upside down.

"The trousers must be able to function with only one of the boots in contact with the ceiling as well as both", said one of the students, Katie Raymer. "All the simple calculations in the study were worked out with one boot supporting all the weight".

In order for the vacuum generator in the sole of the boots to work, the researchers assumed that there was a slightly raised rubber insulator which surrounded the boot of the trousers. This would create a cavity which has a lower pressure than the surroundings when the vacuum is applied. They then observed the difference in pressure between the atmosphere and the cavity and found that the vacuum generator needs to be powerful enough to reduce the atmospheric pressure inside the boot cavity by almost 18 % in order to create a vacuum capable of supporting Wallace and the trousers.

"This corresponds to a low vacuum, which has a similar strength to a vacuum cleaner", Raymer said.