My son asked me this today, and while I thought that I had a sorta kinda basic idea (the cores don’t need to touch as it’s enough if the the electron cloud-thingies interact), I could not explain it so he could understand and neither was I sure enough of this being the correct answer. Can anyone help?
In: 6
“Touching” is not really a concept that works at very small scapes.
Atoms do not interact by touch, but by exerting forces. Forces do not necessarily need things to be in contact to be transmitted – think for example of gravity, which acts across vast reaches of empty space.
One difference between gravity and those inter-atomic forces is that the latter only have very limited range. Thats why things have to be extremely close together to push against each other, which is what we call “touching”.
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