I am not sure if its a rly dumb question, probably is but I was just wondering isn’t it possible to accidentally, at some point in life cut an atom in half since they are everywhere? If the said scenario is possible what exactly would happen? Can it even happen?
Imagine you are cutting tomatoes, if there is an air atom somewhere in the cutting board, isn’t there a chance even tho its rly small that I will hit exactly the spot by accident and by doing so cut an atom?
In: Physics
Well, I’m pretty sure that the blade of the knife would be much thicker than the attom in question, so you’d only be able to push it around, but not cut it.
Things are also made of atoms , at this scale it is like trying to cut glitter
It’s easier to move it out of the way than cutting it , so things just move out of the way
You can’t even cut most monomers (molecules that aren’t part of chains ,some such as polyethylene oxide are chains so you can cut the chain lengthwise)
No. A knife edge is also made of atoms (or really molecules which are even larger than atoms).
Think of cutting something like a person moving through a dense crowd. The person can push others out of the way and slip in between, but they are just a person as well, and they aren’t going to be able to just split another person in two to get through.
Edit to add a little more: It’s also that the link between atoms is much easier to break than splitting the atom. So in my analogy, imagine the people in the crowd are loosely holding hands. It’s easier to push them apart than to well, split the people in half.
No.
The energy required to break an atom depends on the atom. Some are unstable and can break up on their own. But even those atoms can’t be broken by the level of energy you can put into a knife. The atoms in a tomato are the most stable kinds, so that’s out of the question.
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