How do atoms and its components become the tangible things we feel at the human scale if they’re not tangible at the atomic level (and have weird properties like the particle wave duality)?

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Is there any explanation as to how the interaction between atom components then atoms then molecules and then macrostructures like a tree are so different from one another even though they have the same components?

In: Physics

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Anonymous 0 Comments

>How do atoms and its components become the tangible things we feel at the human scale if they’re not tangible at the atomic level?

Well the definition of “tangible” comes into play. The typical defintion of “you can touch it” doesn’t quite translate here. Because you never actually touch electrons or protons. It’s the weak and strong forces of the atoms exerting force upon neighboring atoms when they’re close enough. For all intents, that’s what “touching” really is. You can touch a book as much as you can touch an atom. A book is just a bunch of atoms.

>(and have weird properties like the particle wave duality)?

Not actually a problem when it comes to man-handling atoms. Wave-forms collapse when interacting with other stuff, like trying to touch it.

>Is there any explanation as to how the interaction between atom components then atoms then molecules and then macrostructures like a tree are so different from one another even though they have the same components?

Sure. It’s just scale. At the atomic scale, the weak and strong forces have fields of influence that are sizable compared to protons and electrons. At the tree scale, those forces extend such a short distances that we define a tree as existing at that border.

“How big is an electron?”

Well that depends on what you mean? The particle itself is a jumble of quarks. It’s not an infinitely small thing nor a singularity. But it’s field of influence from the 4 fundamental forces are arguably what an electron “is” and they have different sizes. The weak and strong forces that an electron exerts are…. atomically big. The EM field extends further and doesn’t really end, it just diminishes. The effects of a single electron’s gravity extends all the way to other galaxies.

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