Question

When a force of 15 newtons is applied to a stationary chair, it starts moving. What can you say about the frictional force between the chair and the floor of the room?

Answer 1

First you need to make a difference between friction while object is stationary and the friction while object is moving. Force required to start moving some object is slightly greater than force required to maintain objects movement. That means that to move a chair you need some force F1 but you can than slightly reduce force and chair will still be moving.

Now to the problem in this question: It can be said that "stationary friction force" is equal to 15 Newtons. Its also good to know that friction force between chair and floor while you are increasing your push is also increasing and is equal to force of your push. Once it reaches 15N which is it "critical value" for that chair, chair starts moving and friction force drops a little bit and now it is called friction force of moving chair.