Can You Lift a Car Using Two Interleaved Phone Books?

Yes, ok, well. I would see the video of the verrrry careful interleaving of the books.

This may be a shelf project. The 'Yellow Pages' telephone directory are something that my local council don't like to recycyle (something to do with the yellow dye). I have a stack load that I don't know what to do with. If somebody will gift me a Lamboughini (Miura), I'll give it a shot. If you don't have Yellow Pages in America, any old directory will do and I'll foot the bill for suitable dye.

Kris:

Yellow Pages we got. Lambos we ain't. How about YOU gift US the Lambo (they come from your side of the pond, anyway) and WE'LL provide the Yellow Pages?

How many do you want? Can we blow up the car afterwards? OK, no, I won't, but can I drive it? Really?

Oh rats, there must be some cheap tat I can swap from Blighty.....I know, If enough people pay me $100, I'll not post on CR4 for a whole week.

If one use double thick directories and remove every second page from both before interleaving the clamping force will be lost and only friction will come into play.

The failing force should be much lower.

Interesting observation, logical, but one worth checking (can we get MythBusters to do a follow-on?), because I would think the spine of the book would be too flexible, such that the ... No, forget that, there is no reason the book would just "self compress" to take up the slack, so to speak. And the original test was done with no "sandwich board" to provide compression on the pages. It was strictly the spine-derived spacing of the pages that supplied pressure. Removing every other page should alleviate that pressure, and absent any OTHER supplied pressure, it sounds like you are right.

Now, what about the molecular micro-bonding forces? Since friction as a broad description includes several forces, including that known as "stiction" (the molecular force) and that force is multiplied greatly by increasing the area in contact, stiction becomes a major player in this equation.

Anyone have any ideas how to at least estimate stiction? This could turn into a fun, informative and fascinating thread for anyone who likes advanced math.

Like me.

But on the whole, since stiction is a part of friction, Yep, you're probably right.

It sure would be fun to see that thesis tested.