IT is universally assumed that the force resisting the sliding of one body over another acts in a direction opposite to the relative velocity. However, no recent test of this law appears to have been ...

I'll be honest—friction is pretty complicated. Imagine that I have a block of wood sliding on a table. In some way, the atoms on the surface of the wood block are interacting with the surface atoms on ...

Friction is an intrinsic physical phenomenon to curling. Without it, objects in motion would move endlessly, without slowing down. This would cause many safety-related problems: Cars or trains could ...

Earlier, we saw that the work done by friction on a particle sliding on a rough surface is negative, causing a loss in total mechanical energy as the particle slides. Here, we will address the ...

1.1 What is friction? Take this everyday example: when a coffee mug rests on a flat table, the kinetic frictional force is zero. There is no force trying to move the mug across the table, so there is ...