Do atoms ever touch?

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Atoms do not have a difficult limit, which can make it tough to specify “touching.”

(Image credit: Eugene Mymrin by means of Getty Images)

From almost unbreakable metals, like tungstento fragile clouds in the sky, atoms comprise whatever around us. Do these atoms ever touch each other? Similar to a lot of subjects in atomic physics, the response is more complex than you may anticipate.

Before we can address this concern, it’s crucial to specify what we suggest by “touch,” stated Christopher Bairdan associate teacher of physics at West Texas A&M University.

“On the human scale, what we usually mean when we say that two objects are touching is that the well-defined outer surface of one object resides at the same location as the well-defined outer surface of the other object,” Baird informed Live Science in an e-mail. “[But] this type of touching does not really make sense at the atomic scale because atoms do not have well-defined outer surfaces.”

An atom is neither a strong things nor the tiniest system understood to researchers. Rather, an atom is made from numerous various particles that engage according to particular guidelines. At its core, an atom is a nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons.

A closer appearance exposes that this nucleus consists of protons and neutrons, which are made up of particles called quarks and gluons. Atoms of various aspects have various varieties of protons, neutrons and electrons. A hydrogen atom has one proton, one electron and absolutely no neutrons, while uranium has 92 protons, 92 electrons and up to 146 neutrons.( The varieties of neutrons in an aspect can differ depending upon which isotope it is. )

Related: Do quantum universes truly exist?

An atom’s cloud of electrons makes it hard to figure out a specific limit for “touching,” Baird stated. Rather, it is better to specify it as the point that sets off a physical or chemical impact, such as the production of chemical bonds. This might develop when atoms’ electron clouds overlap considerably, he stated.

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“They touch when the electron orbitals of one atom overlap enough with the electron orbitals of the other atom that physical or chemical effects start happening,” Baird described. “This is probably one of the best definitions for touching on the atomic scale.”

Touching amongst atoms can be produced in various methods, consisting of electromagnetism, gravity and quantum mechanics. (Image credit: japatino by means of Getty Images)

This “touching” can be an outcome of various forces, consisting of electromagnetism gravity and quantum mechanicsLiquids and solids normally touch through the production of chemical bonds, Baird stated, and gases touch by bouncing off each other.

Another kind of touching can occur when particles clash at high speeds, like in a particle accelerator like CERN’s Big Hadron Collider in Switzerland, stated Zhiquan Suna doctoral prospect at MIT’s Center for Theoretical Physics.

“When atoms collide with each other with high enough energy so that their electron clouds overlap … the nuclei might undergo elastic or inelastic collisions,” Sun informed Live Science in an e-mail. “If the collision is elastic, the nucleus simply changes directions and finds its electrons again and becomes the same atom it was. If the nuclei collide inelastically, it breaks apart into protons and neutrons and these may form different nuclei.”

At CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), particles clash at extremely high energies to break particles apart and even form brand-new, subatomic particles, like the Higgs bosonComparable accidents most likely happened in the early universe

At the end of the day, despite the fact that atoms do not touch in the exact same method we do, atomic touching is what comprises life as we understand it, Baird stated.

“A chair or a rock could not hold itself together in the shape of a chair or a rock if the object’s atoms were not touching each other through their chemical bonds,” he stated. “All material effects arise from some form of atoms touching each other, including chemical reactions, vibrations, sound waves, heat, and so forth.”

Sarah is a D.C.-based independent science reporter thinking about the philosophical concerns of science and innovation and how research study intersects with our every day lives. Her work has actually appeared in Popular Mechanics, IEEE Spectrum, Inverse, and Nature, to name a few outlets, and covers subjects varying from AI to particle physics and area travel. She has a master’s degree in science journalism from Boston University.