The dynamics of frictional slip have been studied for centuries yet many aspects of these everyday processes are not understood. One such aspect is the onset of slip. First described by Coulomb and Amontons as the transition from static to dynamic friction, the onset...

Statistical mechanical systems can be described by very high-dimensional energy landscapes. These landscapes are in turn described by their stationary points (minima, saddles, & maxima). Many thermodynamic properties of the original system can be recovered from a catalogue of these stationary...