Solve two Atwood machine problems step by step, including the effects of friction and an inclined plane. Learn how to set up free-body diagrams, apply Newton’s laws, and avoid common mistakes in ...

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 ...

Friction may not be the first problem we think of afflicting medical device design, but it is a real issue for many single-use medical devices like syringes, injection pens, and auto-injectors.

In November 2008, the space shuttle Endeavor visited the International Space Station to do some important repair work. A critical part of the mission was to service the station’s two rotary joints, ...

Stanford’s Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao on how to boost efficiency and satisfaction while also improving innovation and decision-making. Organizations too often subject their employees and customers to ...

Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci surgical system--Courtesy of Intuitive Problems and bad press involving Intuitive Surgical's ($ISRG) da Vinci surgical robots have hit ...

The concepts of friction and wear are easy to understand, yet they can interrelate in complex ways within a tribological system (science concerned with interacting surfaces in relative motion ...

Cold ions sliding across periodic energy-potential patterns formed by lasers have been used to elucidate the physics of dry friction between crystals. Experiments with no more than six ions suffice to ...