Scientists Have Found a Flaw in a 300-Year-Old Law of Physics, and It’s Changing How Friction Works.

For more than three hundred years, Amonons first law has been one of the most reliable principles of physics. Written by the French physicist Guillaume Amontons in his 1699 book De la résistance causée dans les machines, the law states that the force of friction is directly proportional to the applied load, which means that heavier objects produce more friction, because greater weight increases the connection between smaller material imperfections. It’s a brilliant idea, and it’s worked wonders for science and engineering.

Yet the history of physics is the story of laws eventually reaching their limits. For example, Newton’s laws of motion are fundamentally broken, which is where Einstein’s general theory of relativity comes into play. It is for some reason that modern science prefers the word “theory” over “law”, a change in language that accommodates future discoveries. The University of Konstanz experiment is the latest example of why that humility is appropriate.

Good Test and Meet, But Confused

According to a study published in Natural Thingsthe researchers built two pieces of magnetic components that rotate freely and placed them on top of the second magnetic layer. These two parts are not physically joined, yet there is a balanced conflict between them. This friction is magnetic in nature, it works without any friction.

The team then changed the distance between the two magnetic fields to see how the friction changed. What they found was the exact opposite of the Amontons: both near and far, the conflict was minimal. However, in the middle places, conflicts increased.

Competing Relationships in Heart Anomalies

The explanation depends on the internal magnetic force that appears in those central areas. According to the researchers, when groups are not too close or too far apart, competitive interactions take place. In the upper part of the magnet, the magnetic moments point in parallel but opposite directions, an arrangement known as antiparallel alignment, while the lower part stays in the same parallel direction. This unstable configuration forces tools to constantly shift between parallel and anti-parallel states as they slide, and it is this constant configuration that causes increasing friction.

Hongri Gu, from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who wrote the research while at the University of Konstanz, explained: “By changing the distance between the magnetic fields, we can drive the system into a regime of competitive interactions where the rotors are constantly reorganizing as they slide..”

No Frills, No Frills, No Grips

What makes this discovery particularly remarkable is its method. Clemens Bechinger, director of the project at the University of Konstanz, said in a press release: “Ironically, the conflicts here arise entirely through internal reorganization. There is no wear, no surface water, and no direct contact. Dissipation is produced only by the combined magnetic rearrangement.”

To follow Popular Mechanicsthe experiment was not only designed to prove that Amonons was wrong, his law, researchers believe, continues to work remarkably well under normal conditions. The broader goal was to understand the behavior of gravity at the macroscale, since any forces that occur there are likely to occur at the microscale as well. That potential opens up a wide range of micro and nanoelectromechanical devices, including magnetic bearings and atomically thin magnets.