So, we’re all made out of cells, right? And these cells are really super tiny, so why is it when we accidently cut ourselves, like a papercut or from glass, the sharp edge just doesn’t push the cells to the side?
Further, do those edges push aside out individual atoms too, or somehow have we just been avoiding death via splitting atoms?
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To address your second question:
Atoms are very, very, very, very, *very* tiny. If you were to blow up the size of an atom to a beach ball, then all but the sharpest of blades would essentially be like an office building crashing down on it. And as the outer shell of your blade would be composed of electrons (charged particles), your blade would push aside any atoms it came across well before it could even possibly split the atom.
And even if that didn’t happen – the nucleus of an atom (the part you need to cut to split an atom and start a nuclear chain reaction) is an incredibly tiny morsel within the atom itself. If the nucleus was the size of a basketball, the atom it was contained within would be about 7 miles across.
So you would have to hit that with your blade, and even if it did, you probably wouldn’t break the nucleus. It’s held together by the strong nuclear force, which is… well, strong. It would be like firing a BB gun at a tank.
And even if you did all that, you still wouldn’t be in any danger. Splitting an atom does release a lot of energy relative to its size, but we’re talking atomic scale. For reference, your smoke detectors are “splitting” atoms constantly.
Splitting an atom is only dangerous under certain very specific conditions.
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