A thermodynamic model of friction

What is it about?

The fundamental origin of friction is revealed. A quantitative model of sliding friction is derived from the first principles and shown to agree with nanoscale and macroscale measurements. The model provdes new persperctives for manipulating the friction coefficient.

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Why is it important?

Friction affects practicaly all physical processes and engineering applications. Friction has been studied for centuries, starting from Leonardo Da Vinci. So, far the fundamental origin of sliding friction has been unknown and quantitative modeling of friction has thus been impossible. In this paper a thermodynamic explanation for the origin of friction is given. The model agrees with the observed friction laws and quantiatively predicts coefficients in agreement with measurements.