History of tribology: Assessing the prehistoric impacts, progress on industrial and scientific revolution eras, and contemporary interdisciplinary research trends

The present review focuses on the progress of tribology from the prehistoric period to the contemporary interdisciplinary research trends. During the Paleolithic period, humans used sliding friction, generated inadvertently, to make fire. The Paleolithic inhabitants possessed the knowledge to wear the chloritolite blank to fabricate a bracelet using sophisticated material removal processes. Furthermore, they wore the tooth by making holes, filled them with fillings, intended as a pathologically motivated intervention. Humans wore the tooth by in vivo drilling in the Neolithic period, used as a remedial or soothing dental procedure. The Egyptians poured water on sand to ease the movement of the statue mounted on a sled, and recently, compared to the sled dragging on dry sand, the capillary water bridges easing the sled dragging on wet sand is experimentally observed. Bearings are proposed in the renaissance era, and Leonardo da Vinci initiated friction studies, which witnessed significant progress in the industrial revolution era. The industrial revolution ushered in the use of solid lubricants and lubricating oils and grease with additives. Studies in the scientific era discussed friction, wear, and lubrication problems and reported novel, proven solutions. The expansion of tribology research into different disciplines gave birth to novel interdisciplinary studies: the mimicking of biological structures to improve adhesion, use-wear patterns of ground stone tool surfaces, tribological behavior of artificial implants and medical devices, friction in oral processing, and lubricity of two-dimensional lamellar material. Green tribology is the recent focus and it promotes sustainable tribology research for the sustenance of the earth.