atoms don't touch

I like the imagery of the last post because it was tapping into the idea of waves and how sub-atomic particles behave like waves.

However, erm actually 🤓 ...

you pet your dog and the electron-orbitals of your skin overlap with the electron-orbitals of his fur

No, they don't overlap. Electrons are negatively charged, and like repels like. The orbitals will repel each other. This repulsion is the reason why you can feel the fur.

Edit: I'm getting nay-sayers that reckon they do. Please provide a reference that explains inter-molecular orbitals that cause bonding for a hand touching fur. The only thing I can think of this happening is for transition states. This would require a chemical reaction. I don't think we categorise "touch" under "requiring a chemical reaction".

Because the structure of the transition state is a first-order saddle point along a potential energy surface, the population of species in a reaction that are at the transition state is negligible. Since being at a saddle point along the potential energy surface means that a force is acting along the bonds to the molecule, there will always be a lower energy structure that the transition state can decompose into. This is sometimes expressed by stating that the transition state has a fleeting existence, with species only maintaining the transition state structure for the time-scale of vibrations of chemical bonds (femtoseconds).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_state

To um actually your um actually, I think orbitals do overlap, isn't that the very concept of atomic bonding and interaction? There's a Wikipedia article but it's way beyond me. Shame we're not in !science_memes@mander.xyz, there's usually a few experts hanging round their to correct me!
- It was far long ago when I learned these stuff, but I recall that orbitals is more about probability to exist at certain points. So orbitals are more "diffuse" and "fuzzy": there is a probability of an electron to exist 5m away from its nuclei, just the probability is astronomically low. Hence, there is no concept of concrete "touch" at this level.
I'll write an explanation here, but I'll try to answer all questions from the thread. Also quantum mechanics is complicated, so sorry for the long text.
Electron orbitals are weird and complicated, for hydrogen we can solve them analytically and depending on the quantum number of the energy levels we are looking at, they take the forms as in the picture on Wikipedia:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Hydrogen_Density_Plots.png/1280px-Hydrogen_Density_Plots.png
Now whatever energy levels and quantum numbers are, what we are seeing is the probability of the location of the outer most electron (ok hydrogen only has one).
To understand bonds, we don't really need the picture of orbitals, but what's important is understanding that electrons occupy shells. A certain number of atoms can fit into a shell and when it's full, the electrons start a new shell. It gets complicated quickly with more electrons, however in the simpler case, a shell can fit 2n^2 electrons, where n is the shell number. So for n=1, a maximum of 2 electrons can fit, for n=2, a maximum of 8 electrons can fit.
Shells want to be filled, so that leads to two possible bond types. If an atom with a free electron comes close to an atom that has a free spot for an electron, the electron can hop over to the other atom, at which point we have an ionic bond (the atom that loses the electron loses one electric charge and is thus positively charged, the other atoms gains an electric charge and is then negatively charged, so they want to be together).
Another option is covalent bonding, where instead of an electron jumping to another atom, the atoms actually share the electron.
Now do orbitals overlap? I wouldn't give that question a yes or no, because, at that level, we can't really separate atoms anymore. When the atoms are far apart we can draw separate orbitals for both, but when they get together, new orbitals form that is the solution of the electronic configuration of the new molecule we just created. It's more like the orbitals that we have get deformed into new orbitals.
Is it electrons travelling in your brain that made you think that?
I have read about solipsism but I refuse to believe information I gathered from materials made from quarks and gluons, transported to my body via photons

Physics needs more poets who understand physics.

Poetry needs more physicists who understand poetry, too!
In this case we end up with things getting called fun names like "quarks" instead of W- Boson and arid things like that.
- Perfect example! Quarks taking their name from finnegans wake! Sure, science is more than poetry, but the poetry of it is pretty important to scientific culture (and therefore to making progress).

It’s only gay if the atoms touch.

Yeah that's not how it works. Without even going into quantum mechanics or really any advanced physics, something low energy like petting a dog, the electrons in your hand are going to repel the electrons in his fur way before any orbital get close to overlapping.

The only time you can even consider orbitsls as overlapping is during molecular bonding. (And even then in QM the electrons still have sperate orbital, they just go around both atoms.)

I think they meant “electric field” rather than “orbital”.
Not to mention that orbitals “exist” infinitely (with negligible strength/probability).

Ugh. Shit like that makes me gag. Science is beautiful. Don't ruin it with your 8th grade poetry.

I think it was cute
Sorry to disappoint you. Most scientists love poetry. People that can express the principles of our fields beautifully are our heroes. Watch talks by eminent scientists: they are more often than not exceptional communicators as well as thinkers.
- Alright, I'll bite. Why did that make you lose interest? Do you think it's not right, and are you familiar with Quantum Field Theory?
Is this you?

Gravitational forces affect everything no matter how vast the distance, yes the force will be so small that it will have no effect, but the field is touching it. Which means that through gravitational fields, you are touching the furthest planet in the galaxy, your beloved pets, your best friend, your last bowel movement, etc. etc. So romantic!

Your mother has an exceptional gravitational force and I can feel it from here. 😎

This has always been my favorite little did you know thing. Thanks for sharing!

I'm 14 and this is deep