Without friction there wouldn't be any earthquakes, engines would work effortlessly but cars wouldn't go anywhere, and we would end up naked as our clothes unravelled around us. To find out more I visited Dr Rob Dwyer-Joyce who researches friction at the University of Sheffield. Click on the picture to listen to my interview or read on below.
Friction is what stops things sliding past each other.
Without friction, the smallest push would send a book gliding over a table only to stop if it hit something or fell off the other side. But to really find out what's happening we need to get down to the molecular level. When two surfaces are placed together, the atoms on either surface bond with each other through electrostatic interactions - such as Van der Waal forces, hydrogen and ionic bonds. The surfaces literally stick together. So much so that if you place two pieces of extremely polished metal together, in a vacuum, the surfaces instantly cold-weld together forming a single piece of metal.