Researchers at the University of Konstanz have uncovered a new mechanism of sliding friction: resistance to motion that arises without any mechanical contact, driven purely by collective magnetic ...

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 ...

The relationship between friction and load, quantified three centuries ago, has an exception when the interaction causes magnetic realignment. The discovery won’t let you off the hook when dragging ...

Some forces are called contact forces because they require objects to touch. One is tension force, found in stretched wires. Another is the force found in a spring. And last are resistive forces: ...

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 ...

This is a cooler physics problem than I initially realized. It goes something like this. A block has a mass of 1 kg and is placed on a vertical wall such that the coefficient of static friction is 0.5 ...