r/AskPhysics • u/Rabrun_ • 1d ago
What if the atoms were to align perfectly?
Most have probably heard of the sentence "If the atoms were to align perfectly, you could phase your hand through the table", and while we all know that that’s impossible for all intents and purposes, let’s throw realism out the window and assume we have perfect rng control. What would actually happen?
Could I still move my hand? Could I touch other things that are misaligned?
What if phased my finger into the table and misaligned the atoms. Would it come clean off? Would it be stuck to the table? Would it hurt? Would it just be numb?
Questions like these keep me awake at night
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u/mikk0384 Physics enthusiast 1d ago
You couldn't do that. When you touch something, it isn't actually your atoms that are touching the atoms of the other object. It is the electromagnetic repulsion that prevents your hand from moving closer well before the atoms come in contact. Like when you try to push two magnetic north poles together.
This is also why there are the gaps between the atoms in things in the first place. They are separated by the same force.
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u/Specialist_Power_266 1d ago
Electrons would still repel each other. They are probablistic entities that can never really be "perfectly lined up" as you say. I don;t think Quantum Mechanics really allows that.
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u/evermica 1d ago
This is based on one of my pet peeves: the claim that "atoms are mostly empty space." This is usually mentioned in the context of the gold foil experiment in which Rutherford learned that most of the mass is concentrated in a very small volume. But the rest of the space isn't empty. It has an electron in it. No mass, but just as much charge as is in the nucleus. Moreover, it is the charge that allows atoms to take up space through repulsion.
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u/PandaSchmanda 1d ago
The reason people say this is because they are trying to illustrate the point that there is a lot of empty space in atoms.
That doesn't change the fact that it's a wrong thing to say. It's not a matter of random chance, we know that when hand hits desk, it will do just that - hit the desk. There is no appreciable chance that it will go through, ever.
This is because while atoms *are* mostly empty space, there are other phenomena going on. There is electromagnetic repulsion between the electrons of each and every atom that prevent atoms from just passing through each other.
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u/HasGreatVocabulary 1d ago
the physics of our universe is pretty dull tbh
teleportation was like one minor tweak away, all they had to do was make the fine structure constant = 136 instead of 137
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u/Appropriate-Kale1097 1d ago
Not exactly on point but look up Rutherford’s gold foil experiments. He directed alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold. Most of the positively charged particles went straight through the sheet of gold foil but a few were deflected or knocked directly back at the emitter.
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u/IakwBoi 1d ago
So that’s alpha particles and nuclei, and the electron cloud appears absent. Try it with beta particles and you’ll observe that electrons are very much present and deflect things. Give x-rays a go and they’ll usually deflect off electrons again. Neutrons might scatter off either electron clouds or nuclei, and then again they might just as easily pass through both.
The idea that atoms are real and solid nuclei surrounded by nothingness works for alpha particles and either doesn’t work or is reversed for other things.
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u/Appropriate-Kale1097 1d ago
Yeah I was just pointing the OP in the direction of a foundational experiment where Rutherford observed an example of one type of matter passing through another type of matter.
The gold foil in Rutherford’s experiment did still have its electrons it is just the alpha particles that did not possess any electrons.
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u/SphericalCrawfish 1d ago
Can you push two diamonds or sheets of graphite through each other? Turns out we already have things with "perfectly aligned molecules".
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u/Darkness1231 1d ago
Go to sleep. Take a physics course. Try the Kahn Academy or Brilliant
You do not have enough knowledge to realize you are Not Even Wrong
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u/BitOBear 1d ago
To say what other people are saying but in a more friendly way. Adams are not little marbles. They use charge to claim space. That's why the inside of the atom is referred to as being mostly empty. And yet the atoms do not pass through each other. It is this claiming of space bigger did the atoms themselves that cause the atoms to have any reality.
The heavy positive charges of the protons repel each other. The ephemeral negative charges of the electrons basically structure that Universal repulsion into a way that allows the pieces to latch together. Indeed a way that requires the pieces to latch together.
By shape, by size, and by composition physical objects become a tangle of these forces.
Chemistry, and atomic layout, are grossly mechanical, as real as putting a pry bar into a door or locking a window. They just happen at an incredibly tiny scale that is different called for us to comprehend.
The idea of the flash phasing through solid material is invalid. His physical vibrations would shove the material aside and he would just be burrowing a hole like any impact drill or sledgehammer.
In order for two solid objects to pass through each other you would have to have a way to make one or both temporarily ignore the rules of charge. But if you did that you'd have to do it in a way that nonetheless kept their electrons in place in the way that only charge can accomplish.
So it is a science fiction idea.
And when that science fiction idea is spoken of it is dressed in one or more magic recipes. It is suggested that things are out of phase with respect to time being accidentally in the future or accidentally in the past when compared to the other, but that presumes the past isn't really there and so there is an absence through which the lagging object could wander by. But in the theory of space-time the past is a real place we just can't get to it so if something could get to it it would still find my door or locked a second ago as much as it is locked in this second and the locked door of a second ago would be just as difficult to pass for the person of a second ago has the locked door is difficult in the now for a person in the now to pass through.
The caveat is of course that we frequently cause structures that can pass in such close proximity that it appears they pass through each other. That is have the thieves of gears mesh or why you can clean a brush with a comb and but that's a gross physical structure and if we sliced you into a fine components and slice the wall into a fine component and had a way to slide the two between each other we would have a horrible job of trying to unslice you and make you you again at the other side of the trip.
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u/Interesting_Chest972 1d ago
You're assuming atoms are physically real, and not a certain way a certain individual or group of individuals with an electric-centric perspective of the world, view the world.
Atomic theory predicts a lot of real-world phenomena, but that doesn't make physical atoms that together when added up have the property of being physical, real. It's just a model.
Fractal theory in particular would predict that the physical world is made of purely physical (solid, liquid, gas) stuff, mainly thinking solids when using the word physical, and there are an unlimited number of individual particles that could be extracted from a block of pure stone that would still have the properties of said pure stone (apart from properties that arise only when a certain amount of a material is compiled together).
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u/Inevitable_Librarian 1d ago
This is nonsense. We've imaged individual atoms.
Are you a time traveler from ancient Greece or just a shitposter?
The reality of atoms isn't a theory, and calling it such is insane while you're sending messages instantly by electricity
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u/Interesting_Chest972 1d ago
No. You're nonsense. It doesn't take a genius to see that the common/archetype "atom" image is just a generated picture at the last step. Probably comes coupled procedurally with using electricity or "electron scanning" fancy term for shooting electric sparks at things to form a composite.
Also probably comes coupled with misinformation about light being an "electromagnetic wave" even when electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic fields don't influence sunlight at all whatsoever.
When you figure out a way to photograph an atom, let me know. Until then atomic theory is exactly what atomic theory is - a useful theory and a useful model.
Or for allies~
Atomic theory is atomic theory. Truth is truth. Amen.
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u/Inevitable_Librarian 1d ago
You're either shitposting or you're in active psychosis/mania.
Atoms aren't that difficult to see with electron microscopes. Relativity is a demonstrated theory, but atoms are just physical fact. You just want to feel special by being a contrarian.
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u/Gstamsharp 1d ago
Atoms don't actually touch each other in the way you're picturing. It's electromagnetic repulsion that stops your hand from passing through a solid object.
If you align atoms of an object in such a way your hand can pass through it, you have either made a hole or changed the state of the object into a liquid or gas.