Submitted by NTOK21 t3_zz6w7i in explainlikeimfive
stairway2evan t1_j29tv5m wrote
You're thinking of "matter" and "touch" in a very specific way, but not in the most accurate way, I think. It's true that matters are mostly empty space - a nucleus surrounded by a handful of electrons, with lots of empty space in between each atom. But what matters are those electrons - they create a magnetic field that repels other atoms and their electrons. And those magnetic interactions are a huge part of what makes up "chemistry" as a science - the interactions between different atoms.
So when your hand touches your keyboard, it's not as though your atoms are brushing against the keyboard's atoms, nucleus to nucleus. Instead, it's that your magnetic fields are brushing up against each other and repelling each other - we feel that resistance as our sense of touch. So what you think of as empty space is actually what matter is - a bunch of magnetic fields pushing against each other, keeping others out of their space.
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