What gives certain objects that property of being sticky? How is stickiness transferred?
Please emphasize the “eli5”, I missed all of the crucial years of school Gr 4-10
In: Biology
Even if a surface appears to be flat to our eyes, it’s usually quite rough on a microscopic level. If we put two such surfaces together, only the tips of the rough bits actually touch, and the rest of the void is filled with air. Sticky things are solid enough not to flow away, but gooey enough to get into the little nooks and crannies of a surface. When materials are in such intimate contact, forces between close-by atoms make them attract each other.
There are some more nuances, but this is the gist of it.
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