Do We Ever Touch Anything?
Today, while holding my Blackberry during lunchtime, my mind drifted. What I was wondering was if my Blackberry actually “touched” my hand as it laid on it. My brain told me it was touching my hand, and the brain was relayed this information by Merkel cells, Meissner’s corpuscles, and possibly Pacinian corpuscles. I think there is one more Mechanoreceptor but I don’t remember which right now. So, my brain was detecting light touch, but was I really holding the Blackberry?
If we could zoom in to the atomic level, the atoms composing the Blackberry and the atoms composing my hand, will they be “touching”? I do not think so, as the electrons from hand and phone would repel, there is electromagnetic repulsion among the electrons. Atoms cannot really touch even when they “collide”. Also, there is no chemical reaction occuring between my hand and phone. Gravity is pulling the phone down into my hand, and according to Newton’s Third Law, the phone is pushing into my hand, therefore, my hand presses equally and opposite into the phone. However, at the atomic level, classical physics breaks down and gravity no longer works, making the case that I cannot hold the phone. Biology tells me I was holding my phone, whereas Quantum physics tells me I could never touch it. What should I believe? What might bake your noodle later is… what if the phone is holding me? 
April 17th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I love quantum theory, the chaos is amazing. And yes, I like the electromagnetic force more than the strong and weak nuclear forces and even gravity. I hope, however, that CERN’s experiment does discover that gravity “leaks” into other tiny and rolled up dimensions; follow the gravitons! Lol. It’s the only explanation of why gravity is so weak compared to the others.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Haha, that’s a pretty interesting thought. We often fail to realize that, as far as we know, there are only four fundamental forces in nature. The “contact” forces we’re accustomed to on a daily basis are actually classified under the electromagnetic force for the very reason you outlined in the post – repulsive/attractive forces at the atomic level. I’ve always been more fascinated by the chaos of quantum theory compared to the orderliness of macroscopic sciences.