Abstract
The frictional phenomena appear in various systems. Their scales spread to extraordinary wide range. The frictional systems of large scale extend to landslide, glacier and earthquake, while those of small scale reach to sub-nanometer. There are universal behaviors in friction which are independent from the scale of the system. Typical examples are the maximum static frictional force, which is the threshold strength of the external force to cause the translational motion, and the kinetic frictional force, which results from energy dissipation accompanied by the caused motion. Besides these, stick-slip phenomena, memory effect of static frictional force, velocity dependence of kinetic frictional force and so on appear in various systems with wide range of scale. There are common mechanisms in these universal phenomena. Here we review frictional phenomena of various systems from a unified point of view.
