My neighbor is a chimpanzee
Or he’s trying to kill me. This is the fourth time there’s been a banana peel in my path in the past six weeks.
Banana peels are, in fact, significantly slipperier than other fruit peels. The journal Tribology (the study of friction) did the research in 2012. It’s titled “Frictional Coefficient under Banana Skin” and they won an Ig Nobel Prize for it.
I’m going to print the whole abstract, because it’s funny:
We measured the frictional coefficient under banana skin on floor material. Force transducer with six degrees of freedom was set under a flat panel of linoleum. Both frictional force and vertical force were simultaneously measured during a shoe sole was pushed and rubbed by a foot motion on the panel with banana skin. Measured frictional coefficient was about 0.07. This was much lower than the value on common materials and similar one on well lubricated surfaces. By the microscopic observation, it was estimated that polysaccharide follicular gel played the dominant role in lubricating effect of banana skin after the crush and the change to homogeneous sol.
Science! Is there nothing it can’t make boring?
Addendum: I am going to accept Carl’s win. But in future, I’m adding yet another clause to Rule Zero – nobody on life support. We’ll call it “Carl’s rule.”
March 9, 2026 — 5:37 pm
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