electron repulsion

Electron repulsion deals with things on a very, very tiny scale {molecular, atomic, sub-atomic...} The force generated by your arm swinging the mass of the hammer, by far....by far overrides any repulsion on the atomic level.

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Stuff is made out of molecules. The molecules have attractive and repulsive forces, and they align themselves into structures that are relatively stable and cancel out the forces.

A molecule is made out of atoms, and the atoms in a molecule also arrange themselves into stable configurations.

An atom is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Guess what? They also arrange themselves into stable configurations.

And it goes deeper. But the point is, things arent all made of electrons that repel each other -- the protons attract electrons, and they are configured into structures that roughly cancel these forces out.

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yes, but the protons n stuff are near the center, while the electron's are on the shells outside the nucleas. Wouldn't the hammer's electron's encounter the wall's electrons first.

2PacksAday- ur answer seems same with what i thought. But i heard somewhere the electron repulsion is like a couple million times stronger than gravity, so how would ur arm force be much stronger?

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Maradona wrote:

yes, but the protons n stuff are near the center, while the electron's are on the shells outside the nucleas. Wouldn't the hammer's electron's encounter the wall's electrons first.

2PacksAday- ur answer seems same with what i thought. But i heard somewhere the electron repulsion is like a couple million times stronger than gravity, so how would ur arm force be much stronger?

When the hammer strikes, it need not split an atom break the wall. To get your head around this; consider that there are 10,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in a single grain of salt (really).

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Maradona wrote:

2PacksAday- ur answer seems same with what i thought. But i heard somewhere the electron repulsion is like a couple million times stronger than gravity, so how would ur arm force be much stronger?

Well, simply put, your problem revolves around scale/mass. Take Bills 10,000,000,000,000,000 atoms....there are a lot of them, sure...and each one has its own little attraction/repulsion thing going on...and a few other things...but even after adding everything together they still fall way short of enough of anything to withstand the force of the hammer.

I'll put it this way...say a standard 22oz hammer, swung at 40mph, would create several pounds of force, all concentrated on one square inch of wall {hammers tend to have a square inch or so striking face}...vs...the forces that are acting on the atoms that make up the square inch of wall...compared on that scale, a billion x's nothin is still nothin...the hammer wins.

Think of a small tack hammer...1oz, swinging away at the side of an aircraft carrier, then you are getting closer to a workable scale...but still way, way off.

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Not true, 2packs. The hammer does not have the force to separate the atom; it remains intact. Good thing too, if you think about it. :wink:

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You need to understand the 4 Fundamental Forces, and get some idea of the scale of things, as well. For the purpose of your wall/hammer example, or for any example at a scale above the sub-atomic, understand that electromagnetic force is the primary operative - really, what we feel when we push on something, the reason matter has cohesiveness, whether the structure of wood or the structure of a gas or whatever, the structure of matter is due to electromagnetic force, electricity and magnetism operating at the atomic level. It holds atoms together into molecules. Now, get yerself a big eough hammer, say a particle accellerator, and you can strip atoms apart ... but you ain't gonna do it with anything you can find at the hardware store.

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What are you doing up, timber? You got cows to milk or roads to plow?

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

Not true, 2packs. The hammer does not have the force to separate the atom; it remains intact. Good thing too, if you think about it. :wink:

Separate an atom?....That's not what I said....."hammer wins"...as in hammer vs...brick...sheetrock...stucco....things walls are generally made of.

And Timber if your post was directed at me....yes, we have physics books in Mo also, well just one, but I had my turn with it.

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2Packs,

If BILL hadn't corrected you, I would have. Maybe you didn't mean it the way it sounded, but it sounded as if you were saying that since they were so small, their forces weren't strong enough.

Of course, they have the STRONG nuclear force going on, and this force just has an extremely limited range -- the hammer never gets within the range of the strong nuclear force. But they do "have" the balls to repel the hammer Smile

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patiodog wrote:

What are you doing up, timber? You got cows to milk or roads to plow?

Nah, PD, nothin' glamorous like that; I'd been watching a movie on TV, just getting ready to get off the couch and head to bed.

2packs wrote:

... Timber if your post was directed at me ...

Nope - just general reference. Its good to know, though, that Missouri has physics too; guess that makes physics just about universal Laughing

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Oops, didn't actually mean to say that the hammer would be repelled if the strong force could extend that far. The "outcome" would be far different in that case.

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I believe that when you push on something gently and it moves, or smash something, the effect occurs precisely because the electron orbits are repelling each other.

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2PacksAday wrote:

Maradona wrote:
2PacksAday- ur answer seems same with what i thought. But i heard somewhere the electron repulsion is like a couple million times stronger than gravity, so how would ur arm force be much stronger?

Well, simply put, your problem revolves around scale/mass. Take Bills 10,000,000,000,000,000 atoms....there are a lot of them, sure...and each one has its own little attraction/repulsion thing going on...and a few other things...but even after adding everything together they still fall way short of enough of anything to withstand the force of the hammer.

This is simply not true. Every single atom in the wall has enough force to withstand the force of the hammer. They are not damaged in any way by it. The electron repulsion is not the weak link that causes the overall structure to fail. The question itself was a false dilemma.

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You still think I'm saying something that I'm not......Scale/Mass.

The mass of the hammer, plus the force added by the swing, is more than enough to destroy a piece of sheetrock...some paper and gypsum....no matter what is happening or not happening on the atomic level. If you still disagree with that, I have several different hammers, and plenty of scrap sheetrock...I can post pictures if needed.

I'm not talking about damaging an atom, I'm simply talking about knocking a hole in a wall....moved some atoms sure...now they are lying on the floor, but not even bruised. The only weak link in that scenario is the sheetrock itself, the forces acting on an atom holding it together...very, very strong, the forces acting on holding a piece of sheetrock together...very, very weak.

The scale of the original question is...basically impossible. There is no easy way to compare something on our level, such as a hammer breaking a wall...to something on the atomic level....electron repulsion...molecular adhesion....whatever....but I knew what the kid meant.

No atoms were harmed in this experiment.

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When object A pushes on object B and object B moves, or is deformed, or breaks, that is caused by the repulsion between the electron orbitals of the two objects.

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electron repulsion

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