Sometimes you think you have a complete understanding of something and then BOOM—a simple problem throws everything out the window. Let's consider a very basic physics problem involving pushing a ...

At a busy street crossing, people wait for the signal to change. When one person steps out first, others soon follow. Scientists in Amsterdam have found that this same kind of behavior happens at a ...

Charging from friction. Flexoelectricity and tribology may explain how. Credit: Laurence Marks/Northwestern University The electric shock you get from shuffling along a carpet might be the first ...

A model system has been presented by researchers that allows the investigation of atomic-scale friction effects and friction dynamics that are similar to those taking place, for instance, in proteins, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Although robotic devices are used in everything from assembly lines to medicine, engineers have a hard time accounting for the friction that occurs when those robots grip objects - particularly in wet ...

MIT scientists have coaxed atoms into an exotic “edge state” for the first time, allowing them to flow completely friction-free. The breakthrough could lead to better superconductor materials. As ...