Science Shares it's Secrets



Screen Grab From Mythbusters Episode 106



  So what makes these books so hard to pull apart anyway? The obvious answer is friction. Friction is created by the space between the materials that make up everything. The smaller the spaces, the smoother the object. The fingerprints on the front of human hands are used to create friction and allow us to pick things up, while ice has smaller impossible to see grooves, that give it a relatively smooth feeling and appearance. According to the Physics Hypertextbook, this can be expressed F=u*N, where u is the coefficient of friction, and N is weight. The weight and coefficient may be small, but at four hundred pages begins to add up. One of the Mythbusters however, proposes a slightly different theory. Jamie proposes that, "There may be more going on here than just page on page. I think it has something to do with the pages being stacked and the weight that they put on each other, as well as there may be some sort of finger puzzle thing where the harder you pull the more it grabs." In other words, The force of friction may be stronger not from the number of pages, but from the pressure created by pulling the books apart, similar to Chinese handcuffs. 

• "Friction." The Physics Hypertextbook. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2012.  
• "Phonebook Friction." Mythbusters. Discovery Channel. Sept 10, 2008.