Without the force called friction, cars would skid off the roadway, humans couldn't stride down the sidewalk, and objects would tumble off your kitchen counter and onto the floor. Even so, how ...

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 ...

Curling is a thrilling sport filled with strategy, skill, sweeping, surprise and science! Curling is a mesmerizing sport filled with strategy, skill, surprise, a lot of yelling, and science—yes ...

I learned to respect friction, as a phenomenon with many nuances, when I was a graduate student. One day, while teaching a problem session in elementary mechanics, I unwisely invented a new problem to ...

Researchers have discovered for the first time, through theoretical calculation and experiment that macroscopic frictions occurring between clay mineral surfaces originate from interatomic ...

An interdisciplinary research team of the Institutes of Physical Chemistry and Physics of the University of Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt-am-Main has discovered a ...

Memory fault: friction study could provide new insights into why earthquakes happen. (Courtesy: iStock/allanswort) Experiments by Sam Dillavou and Shmuel Rubinstein at Harvard University have, for the ...

To detect the quantum friction of empty space, scientists are going for a spin. A twirling nanoparticle, suspended in a laser beam inside of a vacuum, can measure tiny twisting forces, making it the ...

The best part about living in Vermont is that we get to experience all of the seasons. Sometimes cool weather appears out of nowhere and we don’t have the proper attire so we rub our hands together to ...