Now I get to do something with that force scale I built. I had a request some time ago to talk about friction. Friction is surprisingly complicated. When two surfaces rub against each other, why is ...

Beth Harris, a Raleigh mom and long-time science educator, returns with a fun and easy experiment where kids can test their strength with friction. Beth Harris, a Raleigh mom and long-time science ...

Say we consider a simple experiment of balancing a wooden rod on two fingers. The finger on the left, (1), will remain stationary, whereas the finger on the right, (2), will be moved toward the left.

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 ...