I'll be honest—friction is pretty complicated. Imagine that I have a block of wood sliding on a table. In some way, the atoms on the surface of the wood block are interacting with the surface ...

The friction circle is literally a plot on a chart representing a tire’s maximum grip in both the lateral (cornering left or right) and longitudinal (braking and accelerating).

Put another way, exceptionally low friction at the atomic scale was not a prerequisite for the substantial reduction in macroscopic friction. Last year Martin Muser of Johannes Gutenberg Universitat ...