It’s a moonless night. The wind howls outside. A door opens slowly, as if pushed by an invisible hand. “Cre-e-e-a-k.” That sound — a horror movie cliché — is the result of friction. A stealthier ...

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 ...

I'll be honest—friction is pretty complicated. Imagine that I have a block of wood sliding on a table. In some way, the atoms on the surface of the wood block are interacting with the surface atoms on ...