If we’re made entirely of atoms and atoms never touch how do we feel different textures/fabrics
In: Physics
“Never touch” is sort of a misnomer.
If we zoom in enough, atoms aren’t like billiard balls. They’re more like clouds that, while more concentrated in some areas, diffuse smoothly out with no sharp edge. So “touch” isn’t really a well-defined idea at that level – in some sense, every atom in your body is “a little bit” everywhere in the universe, although “a little bit” here is so little that it is zero for all intents and purposes.
We don’t actually need to zoom in quite that much to talk about touch, though, because even if the electrons in the atoms of your hand *were* billiard balls, they still create an electric field around them because they carry electric charge. When another object with the same electric charge gets close (say, the electrons in the atoms of your desk), it’s repelled because two of the same type of charge push one another away.
For a more macroscopic version of this, take two magnets. If you glue Magnet A to your table, and then hold Magnet B, you can “feel” Magnet A by moving Magnet B around even if they don’t come into direct contact. While magnetic fields and electric fields behave somewhat differently (in a sense they’re two pieces of one underlying thing), this should at least give you a sense of how you can feel a thing without making direct contact with it.
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