Schematic illustration of Friction Force Microscopy (FFM). The AFM cantilever, a small diving board-like structure about 200 micrometers long, 50 micrometers wide, and 1 micrometer thick, has a sharp ...

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 ...

Explore how forces and friction work to hold a block against a vertical wall. This video explains normal force, frictional force, and equilibrium conditions, showing how these forces balance to ...

Nanomachines will depend on our knowledge of friction, heat transfer and energy dissipation at the atomic level for their very survival. In the scramble to revolutionize the world with nanotechnology ...

Here’s the rub with friction — scientists don’t really know how it works. Although humans have been harnessing its power since rubbing two sticks together to build the first fire, the physics of ...

Of course, the study of friction is nothing new; and to explain the 20th-century crisis, and to understand where tribology may yet take us, we must first understand how we got here. So begins Vail’s ...

The term tribology is derived from the Greek word "tribo" meaning rubbing and "logy" meaning knowledge. The original applications by the Greeks of tribology were in trying to understand the motion of ...

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 ...

How much do you know about friction? Jennifer R. Vail's charming, if sometimes technical, "biography" of the force showcases its amazing and largely overlooked role in everything from climate change ...