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AnonTechie writes:

People, trucks and even military tanks have tried and failed the task of pulling apart two phone books lying face up with their pages interleaved, like a shuffled deck of cards. While physicists have long known that this must be due to enormous frictional forces, exactly how these forces are generated has been an enigma – until now.

A team of physicists from France and Canada has discovered that it is the layout of the books coupled with the act of pulling that is producing the force.

http://phys.org/news/2015-08-mystery-impossible-interleaved.html

[Source]: http://theconversation.com/solved-the-mystery-of-why-its-impossible-to-pull-apart-interleaved-phone-books-46697

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