Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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This video explores the intriguing phenomenon of "lightning" events at soft-rigid frictional interfaces, offering a unique science experiment into material interactions. These events are attributed to triboelectric charging and electrostatic discharge, providing insights into friction physics. Detailed visualizations, including contact maps and spectrograms, demonstrate how static electricity and lightning are associated with the nucleation of an opening pulse in a flat sample. This research in material science showcases additional examples illustrating these phenomena over time.

Read more at:
https://seas.harvard.edu/news/physics-squeak

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