In The Atomist Model, Are Atoms Attracted to Each Other or Touch Each Other Due to Gravity or Quantum Effects?
Atoms attract each other due to the force exerted by the nucleus of the atoms. In the beginning, the nuclear force (i.e. the force exerted by the protons present in the nucleus of one atom on the electrons of the other atom) dominate the repulsive forces between the electrons of the two atoms. Gravity plays no role in atomic attraction nor repulsion.
The unproven Graviton is said to account for atomic attraction.
This is also an unproven theory.
The unproven Graviton is said to account for atomic attraction.
Answers by Dr. Christopher S. Baird:
The answer depends on what you mean by “touch”.
There are three possible meanings of touch at the atomic level:
1) Two objects influence each other
2) Two objects influence each other significantly
3) Two objects reside in the exact same location.
Note that the everyday concept of touch (i.e. the hard boundaries of two objects exist at the same location) makes no sense at the atomic level because atoms don't have hard boundaries. Atoms are not really solid spheres. They are fuzzy quantum probability clouds filled with electrons spread out into waving cloud-like shapes called "orbitals". Like a cloud in the sky, an atom can have a shape and a location without having a hard boundary.
This is possible because the atom has regions of high density and regions of low density. When we say that an atom is sitting at point A, what we really mean is that the high-density portion of the atom's probability cloud is located at point A. If you put an electron in a box (as is done in quantum dot lasers), that electron is only mostly in the box. Part of the electron's wavefunction leaks through the walls of the box and out to infinity. This makes possible the effect of quantum tunneling, which is used in scanning tunneling microscopes. With the non-solid nature of atoms in mind, let us look at each of the possible meanings of touching.
It is well known that like-charged particles will repel each other and opposite-charged particles will attractive. But this video shows an entirely different behavior: two particles (hexagon platelet) carrying same sign (that is clockwise rotation) will instead attract each other and eventually form a "big atom". The rotation direction of the particle can be actively controlled by blue light down to 1 nW. That means, you can bring this sample outside and observe this interaction under the ambient light.
Attraction of Two Particles With Same-Sign or Same Rotation:
1. If "touching" is taken to mean that two atoms influence each other, then atoms are always touching. Two atoms that are held a mile apart still have their wavefunctions overlapping. The amplitude of one atom's wavefunction at the point where it overlaps with the other atom's center will be ridiculously small if they are a mile apart, but it will not be zero. In principle, two atoms influence each other no matter where they are in the universe because they extend out in all directions. In practice, if two atoms are more than a few nanometers apart, their influence on each other typically becomes so small that it is overshadowed by the influence of closer atoms. Therefore, although two atoms a mile apart may technically be touching (if we define touching as the overlap of atomic wavefunctions), this touching is typically so insignificant that it can be ignored. What is this "touching"? In the physical world, there are only four fundamental ways for objects to influence each other: through the electromagnetic force, through the strong nuclear force, through the weak nuclear force, and through the force of gravity.
Neutrons and protons that make up the nucleus of an atom are bound to each other and undergo reactions via the two nuclear forces. The electrons that make up the rest of the atom are bound to the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. Atoms are bound into molecules, and molecules are bound into everyday objects by the electromagnetic force. Finally, planets (as well as other large astronomical objects) and macroscopic objects on the planet's surface are bound together by gravity. If two atoms are held a meter apart, they are touching each other through all four fundamental forces. However, for typical atoms, the electromagnetic force tends to dominate over the other forces. What does this touching lead to? If two atoms are too far apart, their interaction is too weak compared to other surrounding bodies to amount to anything. When the two atoms get close enough, this interaction can lead to many things.
The entire field of chemistry can be summed up as the study of all the interesting things that happen when atoms get close enough to influence each other electromagnetically. If two atoms are non-reactive and don't form covalent, ionic, or hydrogen bonds, then their electromagnetic interaction typically takes the form of the Van der Walls force. In the Van der Walls effect, two atoms brought close to each other induce electric dipole moments in each other, and these dipoles then attract each other weakly through electrostatic attraction. While the statement that "all atoms on the planet are always touching all other atoms on the planet" is strictly true according to this definition of touching, it is not very helpful. Instead, we can arbitrarily define an effective perimeter that contains most of the atom, and then say that any part of the atom that takes extends beyond that perimeter is not worth noticing. This takes us to our next definition of touching.
2. If "touching" is taken to mean that two atoms influence each other significantly, then atoms do indeed touch, but only when they get close enough. The problem is that what constitutes "significant" is open to interpretation. For instance, we can define the outer perimeter of an atom as the mathematical surface that contains 95% of the atom's electron mass. As should be obvious at this point, a perimeter that contains 100% of the atom would be larger than the earth. With 95% of the atom's electron probability density contained in this mathematical surface, we could say that atoms do not touch until their 95% regions begin to overlap. Another way to assign an effective edge to an atom is to say it exists halfway between two atoms that are covalently bonded. For instance, two hydrogen atoms that are covalently bonded to each other to form an H2 molecule have their centers separated by 50 picometers. They can be thought of as "touching" at this separation. In this approach, atoms touch whenever they are close enough to potentially form a chemical bond.
3. If "touching" is taken to mean that two atoms reside in the exact same location, then two atoms never touch at room temperature because of the Pauli exclusion principle. The Pauli exclusion principle is what keeps all the atoms in our body from collapsing into one point. Interestingly, at very low temperatures, certain atoms can be coaxed into the exact same location. The result is known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. Again, atoms never touch in the everyday sense of the word for the simple reason that they don't have hard boundaries. But in every other sense of the word "touch" that has meaning at the atomic level, atoms certainly touch.”
What Atoms Are Attracted To Each Other?
The valence electrons are involved in bonding one atom to another. The attraction of each atom’s nucleus for the valence electrons of the other atom pulls the atoms together. As the attractions bring the atoms together, electrons from each atom are attracted to the nucleus of both atoms, which “share” the electrons.
What Two Particles Have An Attractive Force Between Them?
There is an attractive force between neutrons and protons, known as the strong nuclear force, that holds these particles together in the nucleus.
Which Type of Charged Particles Would Be Attracted To Each Other?
When it comes to electric charges, opposites attract, so positive and negative particles attract each other. You can see this in the Figure below. This attraction Explains Why Negative Electrons Keep Moving Around The Positive Nucleus Of The Atom.
Which Type of Atoms Will Attract Electrons?
The electronegativity of an element is the degree to which an atom will attract electrons in a chemical bond. Elements with higher electronegativities, such as N, O, and F (fluorine), have a strong attraction for electrons in a chemical bond and will therefore “pull” electrons away from less electronegative atoms.
How Do Atoms Attract Electrons?
An atom’s electronegativity is affected by both its atomic number and the size of the atom. The higher its electronegativity, the more an element attracts electrons. The opposite of electronegativity is electropositivity, which is a measure of an element’s ability to donate electrons.
Which Atom Pair Has The Strongest Attraction Between Them?
Explanation:
Fluorine has the greatest attraction for electrons in any bond that it forms.
What are the two subatomic particles above that are attracted to each other?
The two subatomic particles that are attracted to each other are protons and electrons.
Why Do Charged Particles Attract?
Like charges (two negatively charged particles or two positively charged particles) repel each other while opposite charges (a positively charged particle and a negatively charged particle) attract. Due to their positive charge, they are attracted to the negative particles in the water, as shown below.
How Do Two Electrons Attract Each Other?
Electrons have a negative charge. The charge on the proton and electron are exactly the same size but opposite. Since opposite charges attract, protons and electrons attract each other.
How Do You Attract Electrons?
Electronegativity is a property that describes the tendency of an atom to attract electrons (or electron density) toward itself. An atom’s electronegativity is affected by both its atomic number and the size of the atom. The higher its electronegativity, the more an element attracts electrons.
Why Do Atoms Create Chemical Bonds?
Difference Between Stability and Neutral Electrical Charge By Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.
Atoms form chemical bonds to make their outer electron shells more stable. The type of chemical bond maximizes the stability of the atoms that form it. An ionic bond, where one atom essentially donates an electron to another, forms when one atom becomes stable by losing its outer electrons and the other atoms become stable (usually by filling its valence shell) by gaining the electrons. Covalent bonds form when sharing atoms results in the highest stability. Other types of bonds besides ionic and covalent chemical bonds exist, too.
Bonds and Valence Electrons
The very first electron shell only holds two electrons. A hydrogen atom (atomic number 1) has one proton and a lone electron, so it can readily share its electron with the outer shell of another atom. A helium atom (atomic number 2) has two protons and two electrons. The two electrons complete its outer electron shell (the only electron shell it has), plus the atom is electrically neutral this way. This makes helium stable and unlikely to form a chemical bond.
Past hydrogen and helium, it's easiest to apply the octet rule to predict whether two atoms will form bonds and how many bonds they will form. Most atoms need eight electrons to complete their outer shell. So, an atom that has two outer electrons will often form a chemical bond with an atom that lacks two electrons to be "complete."
For example, a sodium atom has one lone electron in its outer shell. A chlorine atom, in contrast, is short one electron to fill its outer shell. Sodium readily donates its outer electron (forming the Na+ ion, since it then has one more proton than it has electrons), while chlorine readily accepts a donated electron (making the Cl- ion, since chlorine is stable when it has one more electron than it has protons). Sodium and chlorine form an ionic bond with each other to form table salt (sodium chloride).
A Note About Electrical Charge
You may be confused about whether the stability of an atom is related to its electrical charge. An atom that gains or loses an electron to form an ion is more stable than a neutral atom if the ion gets a full electron shell by forming the ion.
Because oppositely charged ions attract each other, these atoms will readily form chemical bonds with each other.
Why Do Atoms Form Bonds?
You can use the periodic table to make several predictions about whether atoms will form bonds and what type of bonds they might form with each other. On the far right-hand side of the periodic table is the group of elements called the noble gases. Atoms of these elements (e.g., helium, krypton, neon) have full outer electron shells. These atoms are stable and very rarely form bonds with other atoms.
One of the best ways to predict whether atoms will bond with each other and what type of bonds they will form is to compare the electronegativity values of the atoms. Electronegativity is a measure of the attraction an atom has to electrons in a chemical bond.
A large difference between electronegativity values between atoms indicates one atom is attracted to electrons, while the other can accept electrons. These atoms usually form ionic bonds with each other. This type of bond forms between a metal atom and a nonmetal atom.
If the electronegativity values between two atoms are comparable, they may still form chemical bonds to increase the stability of their valence electron shell. These atoms usually form covalent bonds.
You can look up electronegativity values for each atom to compare them and decide whether an atom will form a bond or not. Electronegativity is a periodic table trend, so you can make general predictions without looking up specific values. Electronegativity increases as you move from left to right across the periodic table (except for the noble gases). It decreases as you move down a column or group of the table. Atoms on the left-hand side of the table readily form ionic bonds with atoms on the right side (again, except the noble gases). Atoms in the middle of the table often form metallic or covalent bonds with each other.