Brain College
Brain College

What is Friction?

What are the forces of static and kinetic friction?

Parking your car on the steep hills of San Francisco is scary, and it would be impossible without the force of static friction.

The force of static friction is a force between two surfaces that prevents those surfaces from sliding or slipping across each other. This is the same force that allows you to accelerate forward when you run. Your planted foot can grip the ground and push backward, which causes the ground to push forward on your foot. We call this “grippy” type of friction, where the surfaces are prevented from slipping across each other, a static frictional force. If there were absolutely no friction between your feet and the ground, you would be unable to propel yourself forward by running, and would simply end up jogging in place (similar to trying to run on very slippery ice).

Now, if you park on a hill that is too steep, or if you are being pushed backward by a Sumo wrestler you’re probably going to start sliding. Even though the two surfaces are sliding past each other, there can still be a frictional force between the surfaces, but this sliding friction we call a kinetic frictional force. This force of kinetic friction F_kF​k​​F, start subscript, k, end subscript always opposes the sliding motion and tries to reduce the speed at which the surfaces slide across each other. For example, a person sliding into second base during a baseball game is using the force of kinetic friction to slow down. If there were no kinetic friction, the baseball player would just continue sliding (yes, this would make stealing bases in baseball difficult).

[Physically, why are there any frictional forces at all?]

Static and Kinetic Frictional Force:-

The static frictional force is a little different from the kinetic frictional force. For one, the static frictional force will change its value based on how much force is being applied to the unbudging object. Imagine, for example, trying to slide a heavy crate across a concrete floor. You may push harder and harder on the crate and not move it at all. This means that the static friction responds to what you do. It increases to be equal to and in the opposite direction of your push. But if you finally push hard enough, the crate seems to slip suddenly and starts to move. Once in motion it is easier to keep it in motion than it was to get it started, indicating that the kinetic frictional force is less than the maximum static frictional force.
If you add mass to the crate, say by placing a box on top of it, you need to push even harder to get it started and also to keep it moving. Furthermore, if you oiled the concrete (reducing the coefficient of static friction \mu_sμ​s​​mu,you would find it to be easier to get the crate started (as you might expect).