How does our sense of touch work? There are tons of particles in the air but we can’t feel them. How does this work?
In: Biology
It depends…
You feel something when your nerve endings are triggered… This might be from pressure, heat, cold, or if something moves the hairs on your skin.
They can also be triggered by chemical means such as with capsaicin. You don’t have the same nerve density throughout your body as well, meaning you’re more sensitive in some parts versus others. Back of your hand vs back of your neck for example. Can you identify two close points touching your skin or does it feel like only one?…
It’s difficult to answer the question directly … for pressure it’s thought to be 1.2 lbs/in^2 or 0.85 g/mm^2 on the back of the hand.
On an otherwise-smooth surface, your fingers can feel a lip (like _____————) where the change in height is measured in single-digit thousandths of an inch. With experience (and precise measurement), you can tell the difference between two thou and five thou.
The question doesn’t really make sense because you can definitely feel wind blowing on your skin, which is comprised of particles mostly between 28 and 32 atomic units of mass (N2 and O2 molecules). And if you happened to be in a wind tunnel of helium or hydrogen gases, you’d feel those, too (atomic mass of 4 and 2, respectively).
Can you feel a single molecule? Probably not, no matter how large it is. What you “feel” is bulk interaction with a huge number of molecules.
Not sure but based on the reaction of every woman I’ve been with it must be more than four inches
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