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
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday August 28 2015, @03:45PM
The title is false though "The Mystery of Why It's Impossible to Pull Apart Interleaved Phone Books - Solved". By that reasoning, there should be a definitive answer as to why it's impossible to pull them apart. Not why it's really, really, hard to pull them apart.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @10:14AM
You're just being pedantic. It is essentially impossible for a human to pull them apart without using heavy machinery.