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I have to admit that it's a lot of fun
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when people ask me what I do for my job,
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because I tell them
I literally rub things together.
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This sounds ridiculous,
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just rubbing things together.
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But it has a technical name:
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tribology.
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T-r-i-b-o-l-o-g-y,
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from the ancient Greek word "tribos,"
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which means "to rub."
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It's a funny-sounding word
you've probably never heard before,
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but I promise you,
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discovering it changes your experience
with the physical world.
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Tribology has given me amazing projects.
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I've worked on materials that fly,
and I've worked on dog food --
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a combination that doesn't sound like
one person has any business doing
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in the span of just a couple years,
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until you start to view the world
through a tribological lens.
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And I think you'll be surprised
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at how significant
a little bit of tribology can be
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in alleviating some very large problems.
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Tribology is the study of friction,
wear and lubrication.
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You have all experienced
all three of these things.
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Remember the last time you tried
to move a heavy object across the floor,
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and you can just feel
something resisting you?
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That would be friction.
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Friction is the force that opposes motion.
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Wear is the loss or transfer of material.
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It's the reason you have to replace
your favorite shoes,
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because eventually the soles disappear.
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Lubricants are used
to reduce friction and wear.
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They loosen up those stubborn rusted bolts
that just otherwise will not budge.
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But tribology is also defined
as the science of interacting surfaces
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in relative motion.
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So, interacting surfaces
in relative motion:
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there are a lot of those in the world.
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As you're sitting there right now,
are you wiggling your foot at all
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or maybe shifting around in your seat?
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Because guess what?
Tribology is happening.
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Even the smallest shift in your seat
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involves two surfaces
moving relative to each other.
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And your tribological
interaction for the shift
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will be different than
the person next to you.
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This is because the clothes you're wearing
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change the friction
between you and the seat.
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If you're wearing silk, it's a little
easier to squirm around in the seat
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than if you're wearing wool.
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That's because the friction
is lower for silk.
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If you're moving your ankle
or wiggling your ankle at all,
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did it make a popping sound?
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You've had that, right?
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You get up, you move around,
and some joint cracks or pops.
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Thank you for that sound, tribology.
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That sound can come from the fluid
that lubricates your joints
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just moving around.
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You're essentially releasing
gas bubbles in that fluid.
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That sound can also come from the tendons
simply moving over each other.
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Pretty common in the ankle,
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so any of my fellow
foot-wigglers out there
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may suddenly find themselves curious
about the tribology of tendons.
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But how does one become
a tribologist like me?
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It starts when you're a kid, of course.
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I was a ballerina growing up.
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I reached the level
where I was dancing on my toes,
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or "en pointe."
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Now, when you're dancing en pointe,
you're wearing those amazing shoes,
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but they can be slippery on the stage.
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The last thing you want to do
when you're trying to dance on your toes
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is to slip and fall.
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So we had boxes of stuff called rosin.
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We would step into the rosin,
put a light coating on our shoes.
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Rosin comes from tree sap,
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and in its powdered form,
makes things less slippery.
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You learned real fast as a dancer
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how much was the right amount
to put on your shoes,
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because if you didn't put enough on,
you were probably going to slip
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due to the low friction
between your shoe and the stage.
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Best case scenario,
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you're the clumsy ballerina on stage,
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but the worst case scenario
would be an injury.
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Already, I was optimizing
and manipulating friction.
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You see, I was destined
to be a tribologist.
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(Laughter)
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But you were also a junior tribologist.
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When you used crayons or colored pencils,
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you knew that the harder you pressed,
the darker the color.
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You also knew this meant
you were going to have to sharpen
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that crayon or colored pencil
more frequently,
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because it was wearing down faster.
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Now let's talk about
those enticing shiny waxed floors
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that you just had to slide across.
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You knew if you put on a pair of socks,
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you were going to get
a really good slide across that floor.
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Good luck trying to do that barefoot.
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Master manipulators of friction.
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All kids are tribologists.
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What about us as adults?
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At some point today,
you brushed your teeth.
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I hope.
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(Laughter)
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This is tribology in action.
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The toothpaste and toothbrush
are working to remove or wear
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the plaque from your teeth.
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For the record, my dad is a dentist.
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Never thought my career was going
to circle back to the family business.
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But one day, we found ourselves
speaking the same language,
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when I was tasked with developing a test
to investigate plaque removal.
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Sounded simple enough,
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until I started to look at it
as a tribologist,
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and then it became incredibly complex.
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You have hard materials --
those would be your teeth --
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soft materials like your gums,
the toothpaste, the toothbrush.
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There's lubrication --
the form of saliva and water --
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the dynamics of the person
doing the brushing, and more.
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I promise if we put diamonds
in your toothpaste,
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you're going to remove that plaque.
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Probably going to remove
your teeth as well.
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So there's a fine balance to be had
between wearing the plaque away
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and not damaging your teeth and gums.
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We're brushing our teeth because we ate.
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Eating is another routine thing we all do.
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Seems simple enough.
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But it's another field of tribology,
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and it's not so simple.
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You have the food, which will break
and wear while you're eating,
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and that food is interacting
with your teeth, your tongue,
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your saliva, your throat.
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And all of those interactions are going
to influence your experience of eating.
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I think you can all recall a moment
where you tried something new
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and you just found yourself going,
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"Well, it tastes alright.
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I really don't like that texture."
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Tribologists are looking at lubricity
and coefficient of friction
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as ways to connect mouth feel
and texture to what you're experiencing,
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so that if we're changing the formulations
of what we're eating and drinking
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so the sugar content
or fat content are different,
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how does that change mouth feel?
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How do we quantify that?
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This is what tribologists
are looking to solve.
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And while my colleagues
were in one corner of this lab
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looking at the fat content of yogurt,
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I was in another corner,
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studying dog food.
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That lab smelled really good,
by the way, let me tell you.
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We all brush our teeth on a regular basis.
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How many of us brush our pets' teeth?
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Animals as adults commonly get
periodontal disease,
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so we really should be
brushing their teeth,
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and more pet owners
are starting to do this.
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I know my best friend is really great
at brushing her cat's teeth, somehow.
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Good luck trying to do that with my cat.
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So what pet food suppliers
are trying to do
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is incorporate plaque removal
in things like treats.
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If you have a dog,
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you may have observed
that you give a dog a treat,
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and it magically seems to disappear
after just one bite.
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So the added challenge here is:
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How do you remove plaque
when you have one bite?
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I developed a benchtop test
to study this problem,
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and to do so, I had to mimic
the oral system of dogs:
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their teeth, plaque, saliva.
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And I used friction and wear measurements
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to study the effectiveness
of that treat on removing plaque.
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If you're sitting there right now
thinking about the last time
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you didn't brush your dog's teeth,
you're very welcome.
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But what's the big deal with tribology?
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Let me give you one more example.
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No matter where you are right now,
you got to this location somehow.
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Maybe you walked or rode your bike,
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but for most people in this room,
you probably came in a car.
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Just think about all
the tribological systems in a car.
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You have your personal
interactions with the car,
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the car's interactions with the road,
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and everything under the hood
and in the drivetrain.
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Some routine maintenance
is directly connected to tribology.
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You know how many miles
your tires are recommended for using
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before you replace them.
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You regularly check
the treads on those tires.
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You're actively monitoring
the wear of your tires.
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Tribology is the study
of wear and friction,
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and with tires, friction can be
the difference between a safe arrival
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and a car accident.
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This is because the friction
between your tires and the road
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will influence your acceleration,
your deceleration
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and your stopping distance.
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As a driver, you instinctively
already know how important friction is,
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because you know
that when the roads are wet,
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they're more dangerous
because they're slippery.
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This is because the water
is reducing the friction
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between your tires and the road.
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You may recall that friction
is the force that opposes motion,
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so water reducing that force
means it's now easier for you to move,
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hence it's more slippery
when the roads are wet.
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Something else to consider
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is that overcoming friction takes energy,
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so you're losing energy to friction.
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This is one way your tires
can influence your fuel efficiency.
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And, in fact, did you know
that about one-third of the fuel
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that you put into your
internal combustion engine vehicle
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will be spent overcoming friction?
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One-third.
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Tribology research
has helped us reduce friction
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and therefore increase
fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
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Holmberg and Erdemir have actually
done some great studies
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showing the impact
tribology research can have
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on reducing our energy consumption.
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And they found that, looking over
the span of 20 years,
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we had the opportunity to reduce
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the energy consumption
of passenger vehicles
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up to 60 percent.
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When you think about
all the cars in the world,
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that's a lot of energy we can save.
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It's part of the nearly nine percent
of our current global energy consumption
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that the authors identified
tribology can help us save.
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That's a significant amount of energy.
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So when you look at the numbers,
tribology can do some amazing things.
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My colleagues have identified
up to 20 quads of energy
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we can save across the US alone.
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To put this in perspective:
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one quad of energy is roughly equivalent
to 180 million barrels of oil,
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and tribology can help us
save 20 times that.
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This is through new materials,
new lubricants,
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novel component design,
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doing things like making wind turbines
more efficient and reliable.
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This happened just by putting
31 people in a room
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who viewed the world
through a tribology lens.
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Imagine the opportunities
that will reveal themselves
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as more of us start to see
tribology all around.
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My favorite projects right now
are in aerospace applications.
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I love reducing wear and friction
in these challenging environments.
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I can make materials and parts
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that will reduce the friction
in moving components and engines
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so that they have less force
opposing their motion.
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Less force to move
means they require less power,
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so you can use a smaller actuator,
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which would weigh less,
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which saves fuel.
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I can also help make parts
that last longer through lower wear.
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This will reduce material waste
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and also means we're manufacturing
the parts less frequently,
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so we're saving energy in manufacturing.
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I encourage you to start seeing
tribology in the world around you
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and to think about how you would improve
those interacting surfaces you experience.
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Even the smallest improvements
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really add up.
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Tribology may be a funny-sounding word,
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but it has a huge impact on our world.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)