Friction is an everyday phenomenon; it allows drivers to stop their cars by breaking and dancers to execute complicated moves on various floor surfaces. It can, however, also be an unwanted effect ...

Some scribbles dismissed in the 1920s by the then-director of the Victoria & Albert Museum as "irrelevant notes and diagrams in red chalk" were recently revealed to represent Leonardo da Vinci's first ...

How much do you know about friction? Jennifer R. Vail's charming, if sometimes technical, "biography" of the force showcases its amazing and largely overlooked role in everything from climate change ...

Mechanical engineer Vail, who specializes in the study of friction, argues in this convincing debut survey that the force is important to virtually every aspect of life. She traces the history of ...

Laws of supply and demand apply in homebuilding, of course, as does an unwritten cardinal rule of nature, physics, and economics, that everybody needs a home. So, too, do laws of friction. The first ...