Friction depends on the normal force and the surface properties of two materials. There is no dependence on ambient pressure or lack thereof. Did your degree come from the University of Kingman Reef?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingman_Reef

 

I have wondered for a while whether or not friction exists in a vacuum. Obviously air resistance, one of the primary types of friction, would not exist, because there is no air in a vacuum. Although since it's impossible to create a 100% perfect vacuum, I suppose there would always be a slight amount of air resistance.

Thinking purely theoretically, if a perfect vacuum could be created, it would have no friction, and perhaps a perpetual motion machine could be operated within it. But even if so, it would be utterly useless as an energy source, because it would have to be connected to the outside world in order for energy to be transferred from it and thus would lose its vacuum properties.

My curiosity led me to do an Internet search about friction in a vacuum, which led me to http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927994.100-vacuum-has-friction-after-all.html. That webpage, as well as several others, mentioned two Spanish scientists who claim to have discovered that there is actually a small amount of friction that exists in a vacuum.

What are your thoughts are about all of this?

Hi,

This has probably been mentioned before, but are you talking about the resistance due to air near the surface of the earth vs that in free space where there is no air?

Air resistance is due to the density of air and something moving through it experiences the molecules in the air.

Sliding friction on the other hand depends on the surface roughness which has much less to do with the air because the surface friction will usually be much more than the air resistance. If the sliding friction was low, then the air might have a significant effect, but we usually aim to separate the two functions so we can understand them independently of each other, then add the two when needed.

Since a vacuum is less dense than air, there would be less friction. We then get into the question of is there such a thing as a perfect vacuum.

 

Surface friction (and other effects ) in UHV 1e-7Torr vacuum. The maglev turbo pump shutdown after mechanical failure at ~30,000 RPM. Not perfect vacuum but pretty good vacuum.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8725/16694099767_ed325dbb89_o_d.jpg

 

Hi,
Perhaps the following may be of interest:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19720012801.pdf

 

The quality of answers here greatly exceeds the quality of the question.

That's harsh. I went back and re-read the original question and it's fine.

My opinion is that drag due to motion through fields is not friction. To my mind, friction requires matter moving against matter. Perfect vacuum would have zero 'air' friction.

 

The quality of answers here greatly exceeds the quality of the question.
My opinion is that drag due to motion through fields is not friction. To my mind, friction requires matter moving against matter. Perfect vacuum would have zero 'air' friction.

When 'matter' moves against 'matter' the interaction is all in the fields produced by the particles of which the matter is composed. Specifically, friction is due to the interaction of EM fields created by the particles in the matter.

The OP's question arose from an article to which he gave a link. The friction discussed there is friction associated with 'virtual' photons. Virtual photons, according to QM, are constantly created and destroyed in otherwise empty space. They do not exist for very long, but even a short interaction between them and some matter possessing mechanical energy of some kind would presumably turn them form 'virtual' photons to real photons and in doing so extract a tiny amount of the mechanical energy from the matter.

A true vacuum can only exist in theory and will never be achievable. The reason I say this is that if one were obtained, it would cease to be observable simply due to the fact that there would be no exchange particles (photons, or any other kind) coming from it to be observed.

 

When 'matter' moves against 'matter' the interaction is all in the fields produced by the particles of which the matter is composed. Specifically, friction is due to the interaction of EM fields created by the particles in the matter.

The OP's question arose from an article to which he gave a link. The friction discussed there is friction associated with 'virtual' photons. Virtual photons, according to QM, are constantly created and destroyed in otherwise empty space. They do not exist for very long, but even a short interaction between them and some matter possessing mechanical energy of some kind would presumably turn them form 'virtual' photons to real photons and in doing so extract a tiny amount of the mechanical energy from the matter.

A true vacuum can only exist in theory and will never be achievable. The reason I say this is that if one were obtained, it would cease to be observable simply due to the fact that there would be no exchange particles (photons, or any other kind) coming from it to be observed.

Virtual photons and friction? Oh god! https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/vacuum-fluctuation-myth/

 

Virtual photons and friction? Oh god! https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/vacuum-fluctuation-myth/

Well,

I'm not going to say who guess is right, Alejandro Manjavacas and F. Javier García de Abajo's or Arnold Neumaier's. They are both expressing as of yet untested notions. I was just summarizing the hypothesis presented by the Spaniards that lead to the OP's question. However, I'll keep an open mind about it until we have a resolution of the question one way or the other. Like I did for the HIggs boson and cold fusion. One of those proved to exist, the other did not.

 

Well,

I'm not going to say who guess is right, Alejandro Manjavacas and F. Javier García de Abajo's or Arnold Neumaier's. They are both expressing as of yet untested notions. I was just summarizing the hypothesis presented by the Spaniards that lead to the OP's question. However, I'll keep an open mind about it until we have a resolution of the question one way or the other. Like I did for the HIggs boson and cold fusion. One of those proved to exist, the other did not.

I think it helps to actually understand what is a “virtual particle” before we start giving it properties that are unlikely to exist for it.
https://profmattstrassler.com/artic...ysics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

The best way to approach this concept, I believe, is to forget you ever saw the word “particle” in the term. A virtual particle is not a particle at all. It refers precisely to a disturbance in a field that is not a particle. A particle is a nice, regular ripple in a field, one that can travel smoothly and effortlessly through space, like a clear tone of a bell moving through the air. A “virtual particle”, generally, is a disturbance in a field that will never be found on its own, but instead is something that is caused by the presence of other particles, often of other fields.

Analogy time (and a very close one mathematically); think about a child’s swing. If you give it a shove and let it go, it will swing back and forth with a time period that is always the same, no matter how hard was the initial shove you gave it. This is the natural motion of the swing. Now compare that regular, smooth, constant back-and-forth motion to what would happen if you started giving the swing a shove many times during each of its back and forth swings. Well, the swing would start jiggling around all over the place, in a very unnatural motion, and it would not swing smoothly at all. The poor child on the swing would be furious at you, as you’d be making his or her ride very uncomfortable. This unpleasant jiggling motion — this disturbance of the swing — is different from the swing’s natural and preferred back-and-forth regular motion just as a “virtual particle” disturbance is different from a real particle. If something makes a real particle, that particle can go off on its own across space. If something makes a disturbance, that disturbance will die away, or break apart, once its cause is gone. So it’s not like a particle at all, and I wish we didn’t call it that.

 

I think it helps to actually understand what is a “virtual particle” before we start giving it properties that are unlikely to exist for it.
https://profmattstrassler.com/artic...ysics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

I'm not in argument with you on this nsaspook. What Strassler presents here is a layman's explanation of a virtual particle, and I don't really have an issue with it. I think what the Spaniards were imagining was that if one of these 'disturbances' coincides with the opportunity to extract mechanical energy from a mass that perhaps a real particle (or a real particle pair) will be produced. The resulting particle(s) will then travel off through space taking their stolen energy with them. Energy they stole from the mass leaving it with a bit less.

Again, I want to stress that I'm not proponent of their musings, nor am I a proponent of Neumaier or Strassler. What I am a proponent of is everyone and anyone using their noggins to come up with considered notions. None of this has been tested, but it is all interesting thought and, prima facie, plausible.

 

Again, I want to stress that I'm not proponent of their musings, nor am I a proponent of Neumaier or Strassler. What I am a proponent of is everyone and anyone using their noggins to come up with considered notions. None of this has been tested, but it is all interesting thought and, prima facie, plausible.

I understand but the basic problem is 'virtual' particles only add a BS factor to the understanding of how this might be happening. There is zero evidence of it being a actual scientifically proven process of energy transfer using virtual photons from random vacuum fluctuations. Neumaier or Strassler and most actual experts imply most of what that newscientist article says is a simplistic myth and a confusing misstating of the process that might account for a possible energy transfer if its ever seen by a future experiment..

The actual scientific paper sticks to proper science without the 'virtual' photon crap.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1009.4107.pdf

 

In the good enough vacuum, (here I mean that average time of monomolecular gas layer growth is slower than process length itself) the friction becomes ULTIMATE. Other words, any materials in no respect what it are are gluing together with draconic force of intra-atomic scale. This effect is widely used at vacuum-metallisation, vacuum-sputtering, vacuum-covering etc. To tear off such layer (film) is needed the force many-fold higher that any even most strongest glue.

 

draconic force?

 

draconic force?

But how You may paint it if 1/100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 m3 volume has operating with forces measured in miligrams.
It would be millions of teratonns if to convert to our size world.

 

But how You may paint it if 1/100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 m3 volume has operating with forces measured in miligrams.
It would be millions of teratonns if to convert to our size world.

Sorry if I use sometimes the idioms what "no-one speaks like that" - You may see that English is not my mother tonque, and I may buzz that I am speaking only at seven languages; there was no time to learn more, simply the soldering hammer became hot and was time to waggle it Probably one day I shall improve if You will tick the finger each time

 

I thought the term might have meaning in another language or known among a select few. I think I am starting to understand. If you had said that in the first place I would have understood more than a week earlier

 

I thought the term might have meaning in another language

The Epitet Draconic comes from Hungarian (or Slovakian) emperor Dracula - the unbeatingly strong and bloody inquisitor at middle-ages; or as an Europe widely used epitet mens - `strong without of mercy`. Do really this internationalism is not into US slang?? Wow!

 

Not in American English as far as I know.

 

The Epitet Draconic comes from Hungarian (or Slovakian) emperor Dracula - the unbeatingly strong and bloody inquisitor at middle-ages; or as an Europe widely used epitet mens - `strong without of mercy`. Do really this internationalism is not into US slang?? Wow!

In the US, "draconic" (or, more often, "draconian") is an adjective sometimes applied to laws or punishments that are excessively harsh or severe. It implies maliciousness or cruelty. We would not use the term to describe a physical force.

 

I cheated and looked this up. Draconian dose not relate to the Emperor Dracula (as I thought up to a few hours ago) but to the Greek Draco, the giver of (harsh) laws.