the.com/abrasive
the friction that smooths the world while wearing itself down to nothing
means Describing something rough enough to scrape or wear down a surface — or, of a person, harsh and grating in manner.
from From Latin abradere, 'to scrape off,' built from ab- ('away') and radere ('to scrape, shave') — the same radere that gives us 'razor' and 'erase.' What began as literal scraping was later, in the 19th century, turned on people whose manners scratch as much as sandpaper.
- sandpaper origin
- Once made with crushed glass and shark skin
- Mohs scale
- Diamond grinds everything; nothing grinds diamond
- jewelers' trick
- Toothpaste is a mild abrasive polishing your enamel away
- social meaning
- Personalities, like sandpaper, smooth others through rough contact
- self-sacrifice
- Grit dulls itself with every surface it perfects
corundum — mineral used in sandpaper and grinding wheels, ranks 9 on mohs hardness scale
silicon carbide — synthetic abrasive created in 1891, harder than corundum and used in cutting tools
diamond grit — industrial diamonds used in saw blades and polishing compounds, hardest natural abrasive