In his latest piece PaulMattSutter looks at how atoms interact with each other at both a macroscopic and microscopic level.
, we would see a madhouse. Atoms and molecules are constantly flying around, bumping into each other, twisting, spinning and overall making a mess. But one thing quickly becomes apparent: Atoms do not have a strict boundary.
There’s the nucleus, a bundle of protons and neutrons in the center, surrounded by clouds of probability of where orbiting electrons might be located the next time we go looking for them.tells us how to calculate those probabilities, and the range of those probabilities covers the entire universe. However, almost every single time we look at an atom, the electrons are safely bound near the nucleus, so unless we’re doing high-energy collider experiments, we don’t have to worry about it too much.
Since atoms don’t have a solid surface, in one sense there’s nothing to “touch,” because there’s never a situation where one boundary meets another boundary. But “touch” also conveys a sense of up-close-and-personal influence, and in that sense atoms touch all the time., because the electrons and protons in the atoms are electrically charged. Technically this force has infinite range, but it only becomes significant when atoms are close enough.
When we say that two objects are touching at macroscopic scales, this is exactly what it means at microscopic scales.Atoms can touch in other ways too, because the electromagnetic force isn’t always repulsive. When atoms get close enough, a manifestation of the electromagnetic force, called, emerges, that can cause atoms to bond together. This is precisely how molecules form, and the atoms inside molecules are definitely touching.
Lastly, even the nuclei inside of atoms can touch. This is incredibly hard to do, because of the extremely strong electromagnetic repulsion between the positively charged protons in each nucleus. But once again, quantum mechanics comes into the picture. If two atoms are brought close enough for long enough, then occasionally, completely randomly, the nuclei will find themselves intermingling.
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