When our human perception of "touch" meets physics

Do you think you are actually grabbing hold of a mug which has in it, your all time favorite cappuccino? Or do you even think that you are resting on the chair? We’ll look into that when i take you to a journey into the the world of atoms and space. Did you know that at one point our galaxy could be packed into the size no larger than that of a microscopic organism? Yes indeed. Most of our everyday things that we have, beer bottles, your ipod and whatever matters we considered as “matters” are quite nearly vacuums. Most of our interactions with everyday things are caused my tiny bits of gravitational and electromagnetic forces between the atoms.

However, i agree with some of the professionals telling me that “Touch” is subjective but as we all know that most of what we think of as “matters”; even metals are about 99.999999% “empty space.” Strange isn’t it? So if that’s the case, i would be guessing some questions such as “So why aren’t we able to walk through walls then or even fall through them?” Like i said, electromagnetic repulsions on the atom scale prevents this from happening unless you could somehow arrange all your atoms in your body to somehow “fit” into the wall but no, lets not branch into this as i see lots of people asking the same question in forums.

So yes back to about touching mugs and sitting on chairs. I wouldn’t say you are sitting on your chair now; cause if we take a look at the electrons in the outer shell of the atoms, they would repel each other at 10^-8 meters but rather, floating/hovering over it.

As far as our perceptions of how solid structure goes, a mate once said, like when you’re having sex, you are merely exchanging protons with no physical touch between the atom of… (lolol i don’t wish to continue further but you’ll get the point) WaveJumper(PhysicsForums)you do have a sense of humor.

And yes don’t underestimate Electromagnetic forces. its MUCH MUCH stronger than Gravitational force though you still feel the weigh on you doing pushups. But if you would like to give a shot to test electromagnetism, Strike a hammer to a boulder. See how it “repels” 😛 (This might be noobs to the experts but it drives the idea i thought it would be a better easy visual experiment).

Give your thought. Correct me if I’m wrong. ;D

~ by cosmicstrings on October 29, 2009.