Is wear law really Archard's law (1953), or Reye's law (1860) ???
In 1860 the mathematician and geometer Reye proposed a simple and elegant theory for explaining the consumption of a solid body when it slides with friction on a rough surface [8]. Reye’s model became very popular in Europe (in Italy was promulgated by Panetti [7]), and it is still taught in university courses of applied mechanics. But, strangely enough, this theory has been totally ignored in English and American literature. Why? A paper from 2001 by Villaggio is interesting to read today.
