this is a very thoughtful question please answer with all your potential?

Question

first of all answer this question in your mind. WHAT causes friction? ANSWER IT FIRST dont go ahead please.




now you might be thinking that friction is cause by the atoms that get in contact with each other...BUT now here comes anoter Question. HOW do atoms get in contact (touch) from each other if the electrostatic repulsion is so strong? theoretically speaking everything is floating... and if everything is floating why does fricton slows down?

If they cause heat then they emit radiation (infrared radiation) but why they emit infrared radiation if atoms are not being put in contact?

Listen guys if the electrostatic repulsion is so strong why don’t the atoms just fly apart?

I don’t agree with matt

PLEASE ….THEORETICALLY SPEAKING YOU WILL NEED TREMENDOUS PRESURES AND HEAT TO put INTO CONTACT 2 PROTONS

SO I DONT AGREE WITH Leanne

Answer 1

Atoms never touch ... only the forces of the particles touch.

If the nucleus of an atom were the size of a basketball it's electrons would be about five city blocks away. Matter has more emptiness in it than particles. You could probably walk through a wall without any atoms touching if it wasn't for the electromagnetic forces in the atom. Quantum physics doesn't
disagree.

So what causes friction is the weak and strong forces effecting each other.

Jonnie

Answer 2

I think you may have answered the question already, they don't have to touch each other because electrostatic repulsion is so strong. The electrostatic charges keep the actual atoms from touching each other because the form a magnetic feild around the atom, kind of like a force feild.

Answer 3

You do not have to get even close to the molecular level to explain most common concerns with friction - usually it is apparent to the naked eye that the surfaces of two objects are not smooth - they contain all kinds of irregularities.
Even the smoothest surfaces, the ones exhibiting the least effect from friction, when viewed under a microscope reveal the surfaces to be extremely irregular.
It is these irregularities banging and bumping and scraping into each other that cause the friction - sanding the surfaces smoother to remove some of these irregularities will reduce the friction significantly - try it with a couple pieces of wood.

Answer 4

Strictly speaking atoms don't touch each other...but their fields do come into contact with each other so it's the fields which are actually reacting with each other to cause heat and act entropically. It is precisely the repulsion which provides the necessary energy for heat.

Cheers!

Answer 5

When two surfaces are in contact, due to the roughness of each surface, the actual points of contact are few. There is no quantifiable relationship between the number of such points and the area of the surfaces in contact.

If there is relative motion between the two surfaces, there is a pair of action-reaction forces of intermolecular origin acting parallel to and along the common surface, whose directions oppose the relative motion.

Answer 6

Friction is motion in progress no-matter whats involved. Everything we all do and see in life is friction in progress in many different ways like a caterpillar crawling along up to a car speeding on the highway or in other words friction is you getting up in the morning all the way back to sleep.

Answer 7

no only gas is floating as such, u need to imaging solid objects like a huge box with loads of plastic balls in it- there are spaces but there are atoms touching, well in affect they arnt but they share electrons- (they taught this wrong when i was in school because i was first taught to imaging it like planets orbiting a sun but in reality the elctrons move so fast that its impossible to measure so in effect they are forming a full 3d shell around protons and neutrons.

Answer 8

Woah, slow down there buddy.

Atomic theory is a nonsense. You should know this!

Answer 9

I agree with the very 1st answer