Jennifer R. Vail

Every day throughout the day, you're dealing with friction.

I'm dealing with friction.

So I think it's important to be able to recognize friction, to understand friction.

And I could even so boldly claim that doing so could help us save the world.

Hi, Mike.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, so friction is something that shows up in every physical interaction.

It is resistance to motion.

So every day throughout the day, you're dealing with friction, I'm dealing with friction, and its impacts are huge.

really ubiquitous, and I don't know that they are fully appreciated.

So I think it's important to be able to recognize friction, to understand friction, and I could even so boldly claim that doing so could help us save the world.

I'm going big there.

When you're walking, I think everyone's had the experience of both having not enough friction and actually too much friction.

If you've had shoes that are sticking too much, you sort of scuff along and stumble that way.

But more commonly, if you don't have enough friction, if you...

step on ice or water, you slip.

And so that is one of the most common examples of friction that we deal with every day.

When you're driving into work, all of the moving parts in your car are dealing with friction.

If you have contact lenses when you're blinking, thank goodness that someone figured out how to address the friction there because otherwise your contact lenses would be very uncomfortable and really moving around a lot when you're blinking.

Yeah, it's actually a great question, and I didn't really get a clear answer when I was researching this.