Understanding the interactions of food and our mouths is incredibly difficult. There are lots of changes going on: shape changes from chewing, viscosity changes as saliva lubricates the food, and, Keep reading
Tag: lubrication
Box Closing Physics
My fellow board game aficionados (and anyone else who regularly opens and closes lidded boxes) have probably noticed the way a lid drops slowly onto its box once aligned. The Keep reading
Beijing 2022: Sliding on Snow
Skiing and snowboarding events rely on the peculiar physics of sliding on snow. According to classical lubrication theory, that sliding shouldn’t be nearly as low in friction as what we Keep reading
Levitating Cylinders by Lubrication
Here’s a surprising example of defying gravity: if you coat a vertical treadmill in oil, a cylinder held next to it will levitate! A new paper delves into the mathematics Keep reading
Kugel Fountains
At science museums and tourist attractions around the world, visitors can spin the multi-tonne spheres of kugel fountains with the brush of their hand. The secret of the sphere’s mobility Keep reading
Hydrodynamic Bearings
If you twirl a glass syringe, it spins quite nicely, lubricated on a micron-thin layer of air. This is an example of a hydrodynamic bearing, a device where the viscosity Keep reading
Crepe-Making Physics
If you buy a crêpe from a vendor, chances are that they’ll use a blade like the one above to spread the batter evenly across an immobile griddle. But for Keep reading
Recreating Pyroclastic Flow
One of the deadliest features of some volcanic eruptions is the pyroclastic flow, a current of hot gas and volcanic ash capable of moving hundreds of kilometers an hour and Keep reading
Landslide Lubrication
In 2008, an 8.2 magnitude earthquake in China caused the enormous Daguangbao landslide, which loosed over one cubic kilometer of rocks and debris. That material rushed down the mountainside, running more Keep reading
What Makes Joints Pop?
Cracking one’s knuckles produces an unmistakable popping noise that satisfies some and disconcerts others. The question of what exactly causes the popping noise has persisted for more than fifty years. Keep reading