A Universal Friction Law Unifies Bearing Tribology, Blood Rheology, and Tectonic Fault Mechanics

We identify a universal functional form governing friction and viscosity transitions across three
physically distinct systems spanning 15 orders of magnitude in velocity. In each case, the critical regime transition — the
friction minimum in bearings, the Newtonian plateau in blood, and the seismogenic zone boundary
on faults — corresponds to the zero-crossing of the continuously varying exponent α + β log x. This
single mathematical structure replaces piecewise regime models that have been standard in their
respective fields for decades. The varying exponent arises naturally from the competition between
two power-law rate processes whose relative dominance shifts logarithmically with the state variable.