Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. In earthquakes, the principle shows how one part of a fault slipping can unleash movement across miles of crust. (CREDIT: ...

Chemists and physicists shed light on a crucial aspect of friction: how things begin to slide. Using fluorescence microscopy and dedicated fluorescent molecules, they are able to pinpoint how and when ...

Friction is hard to predict and control, especially since surfaces that come in contact are rarely perfectly flat. New experiments demonstrate that the amount of friction between two silicon surfaces, ...

Picture yourself at a busy pedestrian crossing. When the light is red, everyone waits -- until one person starts to cross. Soon, others follow, and eventually everyone follows the crowd and crosses.

Water flows more easily through narrower carbon nanotubes than larger ones and we have struggled to explain why. Now, one team has an answer: it may all be due to quantum friction. Friction in its ...

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 ...

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 ...

The friction between a silicon ball and silicon wafer was measured in the experimental set-up shown on the left. The new research demonstrates that there is a direct relation between two effects: the ...