Removing "Friction" In-Game?

[Retreater]

What would be the effects of literally removing friction as a way physics behaves in your campaign world?

A little background. We're running a very limited campaign that will last until the teenagers leave for college. Their last quest is to get the Book of Law. The megalomaniac ruler of the city was wanting it to put his name in it to make his rule indisputable on a cosmic scale.

But one of the players (a senior on his way to engineering school) suggested "what if we can change the laws of physics - I've always hated friction."

So this is going to destroy the campaign world in interesting and funny ways ... a memorable way to end a short campaign with these players.

What I'm asking you ... what would this look like? I don't want to get the science completely wrong in front of my science-minded players.

 

[LordBP]

You wouldn't be able to walk, hold things, weather would be affected as there would be no interaction between the rotation of the planet and the atmosphere, etc.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

You wouldn't be able to walk, hold things, weather would be affected as there would be no interaction between the rotation of the planet and the atmosphere, etc.

That is just for starters. Bricks and stones in buildings under compression would squirt out from under the load, as would other high heaps of stuff, Mountains?

 

[Celebrim]

What I'm asking you ... what would this look like? I don't want to get the science completely wrong in front of my science-minded players.

There are two interpretations. One is just that objects can now slide past each other without creating heat and energy loss.

So basically, nothing that isn't chemically bonded to something else interacts with it.

It's now impossible to move anything in a controlled way. All of the world is just collisions. Objects pretty much always stay in motion because the only losses of momentum are heat loses through internal deformation, and those are generally tiny compared to the force's objects experience.

But you have to question why objects could slide past each other without creating heat and energy loss. Friction is often very much about the fact that it takes force to lift out valleys and break bits at a microscopic level. It's a very physical force. That it goes away and that it no longer takes force doesn't make sense unless you do away with chemical bonds entirely. So, one interpretation is that to get rid of friction, you have to get rid of chemical bonds by setting the Electromagnetic Force constant to 0, and that means everything just disintegrates into an amorphous gravitationally bound soup. All bodies, all buildings, and all landforms just collapse like they were made of water and flow across the surface like a fluid.

 

[LordBP]

Scary thing is that an engineering student doesn't like friction is going to have a bloody miserable career ahead of them.

 

[GMMichael]

I'm not sure how to literally remove friction, but I'm pretty sure everyone's clothes would instantly fall off.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

There are two interpretations. One is just that objects can now slide past each other without creating heat and energy loss.

So basically, nothing that isn't chemically bonded to something else interacts with it.

It's now impossible to move anything in a controlled way. All of the world is just collisions. Objects pretty much always stay in motion because the only losses of momentum are heat loses through internal deformation, and those are generally tiny compared to the force's objects experience.

But you have to question why objects could slide past each other without creating heat and energy loss. Friction is often very much about the fact that it takes force to lift out valleys and break bits at a microscopic level. It's a very physical force. That it goes away and that no longer takes force doesn't make sense unless you do away with chemical bonds entirely. So one interpretation is that to get rid of friction, you have to get rid of chemical bonds by setting the Electromagnetic Force constant to 0, and that means everything just disintegrates into an amorphous gravitationally bound soup. All bodies, all buildings, and all landforms just collapse like they were made of water and flow across the surface like a fluid.

I was working on a response, but you've said it better than I was. Suffice to say, there are so many things contributing to what friction is that most of physics just falls apart from knock-on effects if all of them are removed.

If you want more concrete, comprehensible and crude reason to appreciate friction, remind the players that sexual reproduction largely relies on friction - just the right amount of friction at just the right times in just the right places even for purely reproductive purposes (and it's even trickier when dealing with recreational intercourse). If you could somehow take friction away without changing anything else you've probably doomed every species that relies on sexual reproduction to extinction, and the deities responsible for them will retroactively erase the party from history in self-defense.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I'm not sure how to literally remove friction, but I'm pretty sure everyone's clothes would instantly fall off.

Assuming everything doesn't disintegrate as cited above, I think your shirt's okay - having zero friction still doesn't mean the neck opening can fit over your shoulders - and your pants might be if your belt is cinched over a narrower part of your body than your hips. The fit would probably be really weird and awkward and everything would feel like it was about to slide off though - if you weren't already melting into amorphous gravitationally bound soup anyway.

Amorphous Gravitationally Bound Soup is a pretty good band name, isn't it?

 

[Umbran]

I'm not sure how to literally remove friction, but I'm pretty sure everyone's clothes would instantly fall off.

You would have a hard time picking them up to put them on without friction between clothes and hands.

 

[Laurefindel]

As other posters have said, a world with no friction is pretty hard to conceive as it would shatter most of our frames of reference and just boggle our mind. It's a bit easier to imagine in space - in absence of gravity and atmosphere - where the effects of friction are limited in the first place. It's also more conceivable in a "astral realm" kind of environment where everything just floats and collides, but where I can move from point A to point B because I will it so (rather than using my feet to propel myself forward).