Related papers: Frictionless Racquetball?
Even though there has been a tremendous amount of research done in how to help students learn physics, students are still coming away missing a crucial piece of the puzzle: why bother with physics? Students learn fundamental laws and how to…
We took three lawn tennis balls arbitrarily. One was moderately old, one was old and another was new. Fabricating a conveyor belt set-up we have measured rolling friction coefficients, $\mu_{r}$, of the three balls as a function of their…
The course "Phy Ex" was created by Yves Couder in the Paris VII university to teach experimental physics through projects. In this article, we present this teaching method through a particular project that took place in the autumn semester…
We analyze the impact of two equal billiard balls in three ideal situations: when the balls freely slide on the plane of the billiard, when they roll without sliding and when one of them freely slides and the other rolls. In all the cases…
Based on the fluctuation-electromagnetic theory, we have calculated the retarded force of attraction, frictional moment and heating rate of a neutral particle rotating near a polarizable surface. The particle and surface are characterized…
The coefficient of static friction between solids generally depends on the time they have remained in static contact before the measurement. Such frictional aging is at the origin of the difference between static and dynamic friction…
We examine the effect of misconceptions about friction on students' ability to solve problems and transfer from one context to another. We analyze written responses to paired isomorphic problems given to introductory physics students and…
The paper is concerned with the problem on rolling of a homogeneous ball on an arbitrary surface. New cases when the problem is solved by quadratures are presented. The paper also indicates a special case when an additional integral and…
The mechanical response of a circularly-driven disk in a dissipative medium is considered. We focus on the role played by viscous friction in the spinning motion of the disk, especially on the effect called reverse rotation, where the…
We demonstrate the behavior of three balls skipping off of the water surface: a Superball, a racquetball, and a water bouncing ball (Waboba). The three balls have rebound coefficients of 0.9, 0.8 and 0.2, respectively. However, we notice…
Amontons' law states that the maximum static friction force on a solid object is proportional to the loading force and is independent of the apparent contact area. This law indicates that the static friction coefficient does not depend on…
The Brownian motion of a test particle interacting with a quantum scalar field in the presence of a perfectly reflecting boundary is studied in (1 + 1)-dimensional flat spacetime. Particularly, the expressions for dispersions in velocity…
Contact angle hysteresis of droplets will be examined in light of static friction between liquid drop and solid surface. Unlike frictions in solid-solid interfaces, pinning forces at contact points or contact lines would be the cause of…
The nonlinear dynamics associated with sliding friction forms a broad interdisciplinary research field that involves complex dynamical processes and patterns covering a broad range of time and length scales. Progress in experimental…
The dynamics of frictional interfaces play an important role in many physical systems spanning a broad range of scales. It is well-known that frictional interfaces separating two dissimilar materials couple interfacial slip and normal…
We study multiple elastic collisions of a block and a ball against a rigid wall in one dimension. The complete trajectory of the block is solved as an analytic function of time. Near the turning point of the block the force carried by the…
The two-dimensional motion of an object on a moving rough horizontal plane is investigated. Two cases are studied: the plane having a translational acceleration, and a rotating plane. For the first case, the motions of a point particle and…
When a falling chain strikes a surface, it can accelerate downwards faster than free-fall. This counterintuitive effect occurs when a tension is created in the chain above where it strikes the surface. The size of this tension, and how it…
Friction is ubiquitous in daily life, from nanoscale machines to large engineering components. By probing the intricate interplay between system parameters and frictional behavior, scientists seek to unveil the underlying mechanisms that…
The static friction between crystalline surfaces separated by a molecularly thin layer of adsorbed molecules is calculated using molecular dynamics simulations. These molecules naturally lead to a finite static friction that is consistent…