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 ...

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 ...

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 ...