Can anyone explain to me the physics (and chemistry too, I imagine) of things getting stuck in other things?

(Oh dear. The temptation offered by the subject line.) I have no idea what you are really trying to ask. It makes little sense.

@DarkScribe there is a physics of knots, that has a broad range of applications, is there not? Why not a physics of things getting stuck? It doesn’t seem that hard to understand to me.

I was gonna say something constructive, but then my mind fell in the gutter. It’s stuck in there.

Or at least, more than usual.

Well things get stuck in things and it seems annoying because we don’t want it to happen with stuff we need and all, but things get stuck everywhere alla time, it’s just that we don’t always notice it or perceive it as such, since nobody has any use for a caterpillar with a wasp larvae eating it from the inside out.

Also, it could be fairies. They like to make you drop your toast on the buttered side, so they probbaly get shit stuck in shit just to piss you off.

I do believe it would be, if anything, their molecular structure would react and form together in a way if you are talking about something being stuck in a liquid. Otherwise I suppose the objects hook together on a larger scale acting as an anchor of sorts.

Hard to put into words.

It is all about the shape of the surface on a microscopic scale, and how that relates to the friction between it and another object. Try sliding your fingers on your hair towards your scalp. It is far more difficult than away from your scalp, because the microscopic shape of hair favours one direction.

I don’t know, but I agree with you, and I’d like to know too.

Right after that, I want to know how come the color comes out of garment A so damned easily and goes into garment B, and then it never comes out of garment B. If it was going to stay put, why didn’t it stay put in the first place instead of in the second place?

A raccoon (or some other semi cute animal or pet) gets it’s head stuck in a hole.

The region holds it’s breath as it is finally rescued.

This is considered news.

@PacificRimjob That, while a buncha people go and commit suicide, unnoticed.

Ya feel me?

@Jeruba Garment A would tend to be saturated with dye for color A, yes? While Garment B is likely white or just lightly colored (you’d not notice it otherwise, right?) and therefore not saturated. It is easy for a fabric saturated with a dye to give some up. Not so easy for fabric with just a little dye to give much of what it has up. Much like how getting a little bit of water out of a soaked sponge is much easier than getting the last bits of it out.

@lillycoyote got a specific example? That might help.

Dealing with friction means fighting the repulsive effect of the electromagnetic force. A very powerful adversary. Electrons don’t like it when being pushed together too close.

It’s physics, not chemistry.

Look at the Adhesion section