A theoretical analysis is made of the stresses acting at the contact surface of two elastic spheres which are assumed to adhere to each other after the force pressing them together has been removed. The stress at the periphery of the contact area is shown to be tensile and infinite, so that adhesion is physically impossible; the spheres would peel apart. The theoretical results are consistent with the experimental work of Bowden and Tabor.
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K. L. Johnson (1958) studied this question.