Explore how forces and friction work to hold a block against a vertical wall. This video explains normal force, frictional force, and equilibrium conditions, showing how these forces balance to ...

Sometimes you think you have a complete understanding of something and then BOOM—a simple problem throws everything out the window. Let's consider a very basic physics problem involving pushing a ...

Learn how to solve a ladder friction problem and determine the minimum coefficient of friction. Step-by-step explanations make it easy to understand the physics behind ladder stability and forces in ...

Really, this is the experiment I wanted to start on. How does friction work in Bad Piggies? Let me start with a quick summary of my experiments so far. Scale. For the size of stuff in Bad Piggies, I ...

Friction is an intrinsic physical phenomenon to curling. Without it, objects in motion would move endlessly, without slowing down. This would cause many safety-related problems: Cars or trains could ...

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 ...

Physicists in the US have made a peculiar discovery about how a small object slides over a rapidly rotating lubricated disk. They have found that if the object is tilted so that it only touches the ...

Today is the first day of second grade for SteelyKid, and yesterday I took her and her brother, The Pip, to the outdoor pool for an end-of-summer swim. While loading them into the car on the way home, ...