The upper figure shows the viscoelastic toy model proposed here, characterized by only six independent parameters. Surprisingly, this simple mechanical model produces complicated system dynamics, as ...

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 ...

How can a horde of active robots be automatically brought to a standstill? By arresting their dynamics in a self-sustained way. This phenomenon was discovered by physicists at Heinrich Heine ...

Friction is created when two surfaces slide one on top of the other. Since this consumes additional energy, this so-called sliding friction is considered an irksome yet inevitable aspect of dynamic ...

1.1 What is friction? Take this everyday example: when a coffee mug rests on a flat table, the kinetic frictional force is zero. There is no force trying to move the mug across the table, so there is ...