Friction – The Force That Wears the World Down

Friction is so ordinary that it's easy to overlook - it's the reason your shoes grip the footpath and your car can stop at a red light - but it's also one of the biggest sources of wasted energy in the modern world, and stranger, at the microscopic level, than it first appears. This episode gets into what friction actually is and why it doesn't always behave the way intuition suggests. You'll come away understanding the difference between static and kinetic friction, why a smoother surface doesn't always mean less friction, how lubrication actually works, why friction costs the world such an enormous amount of energy, how brakes, tyres and ball bearings put friction to work, and how your own joints manage to stay almost frictionless for a lifetime. Talking Science is sponsored by Kinsoft. Visit www.kinsoft.com.au Further reading: Scientific American, Nature, CSIRO, Australian Academy of Science