Solved cryptogram
The friction on a sliding block depends on how hard it presses down, not on how wide it is.
Physics Facts, sourced to OpenStax, Rice University.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 71 letters over 18 different ones, graded medium.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
Set a brick on its narrow end or its broad side and it takes the same push to start it moving, which surprises most people. The reason is that real contact happens only at microscopic high points. A smaller face carries the same weight over fewer of them, pressing each harder, and the two effects cancel. The page cited says plainly that this is a serviceable model rather than a law, and race tires are the standing counterexample.
The claim comes from OpenStax, Rice University.
- SourceOpenStax, Rice University
- CollectionPhysics Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length71 letters, 18 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 72 letters
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 76 letters
- NOAAmedium, 70 letters
- NASA Scientific Visualization Studiomedium, 68 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- NASA Glenn Research Centermedium, 69 letters
- NISTmedium, 73 letters
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 75 letters
- NISTmedium, 74 letters