Re: Car acceleration

[John Mallinckrodt <ajmallinckro@CSUPOMONA.EDU>]

> STATIC friction occurs only when the car's velocity is zero.
> ...
> Herb Gottlieb from New York City
> (Where most of our physics textbooks ignore static friction)

Herb,

This is simply, patently, grossly wrong.  Whenever there is a
nonnormal component of the contact force between two objects that
are not **slipping** we have, by definition, "static friction."
Trust me on this: Your car would not work *at all* without
frictional contact with the road and you are almost always in
*serious* trouble when that friction stops being of the static
variety.

John Mallinckrodt from Pomona
(Where we think textbooks in New York ought to start treating
static friction correctly.)