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 ...

A new analysis of the 2018 collapse of Kilauea volcano's caldera helps to confirm the reigning scientific paradigm for how friction works on earthquake faults. The model quantifies the conditions ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Because of friction, sleds don't technically touch the snow and instead ride on a small layer of water created by the heat of the sled sliding down the hill. Sledding is one of many ways Wisconsinites ...

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 ...

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 ...