Submitted by Zalack t3_11x4f9t in askscience
KarlSethMoran t1_jd6vmwt wrote
Reply to comment by blacksideblue in Can a single atom be determined to be in any particular phase of matter? by Zalack
I don't get what you mean by "out of phase". Gravity is exceedingly weak at the atomic scale, it can be safely ignored.
Atoms feel van der Waals attraction. It's a very weak interaction, but billions of billions times stronger than gravity at this scale still. It will get even noble gases into a crystal when there's sufficiently little motion.
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