Abstract
We designed an inquiry activity to investigate the question, ‘Is water a lubricant?’ Placing the same object on surfaces of three different materials, we observed the effect of adding a small amount of water on the coefficient of static friction, μs . Up to 1 ml of water was added. The results of each surface were graphed and compared with one another. In general, our findings show that the addition of water serves to increase μs up to a certain point, before decreasing it. The experiment can be easily replicated in a secondary school science lab. It presents two seemingly opposing phenomena, but they both hold because they occur within their respective boundary conditions.
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