How does friction slow down a moving object?
friction is the roughness of material sticking to another material like a zipper. objects that you think of as smooth can actually have many bumps and cracks and when they touch another object these cracks and bumps can click together like a zipper. When an object is still that is called static friction because nothing is moving and it is higher than friction of a moving object. because you have to break the objects grip on the surface its sitting on like pulling a velcro strip away from its other surface. When an object is moving it has less time to fall into the cracks and creases of the object its on like a table so that its friction while moving is lower than static friction. Using the idea of something sticking to something as friction you can see that when you pull an object along a surface of a table the table sticking to the object is going to make it seem like someone is pulling in the opposite direction because you have to pull just a bit harder to get the object to move with
