Séminaire LaMCoS - The phonebook enigma

Many of us are familiar with a classical demonstration of the strength of friction. Take two phonebooks, interleave their sheets and try to separate them by pulling on their spines. Almost impossible ! This has been carried out spectacularly by attempting to pull the books apart with lifting a car, and even two military tanks, only to fail and suggest that the inner friction between the sheets prevails. In this talk, we propose a solution to that popular enigma. The study of this complex network provides insight into friction with some connections to MEMS, mooring a ship,interactions between DNA and bacteriophage capsid, and even a toy known as the Chinese finger trap.