BACKGROUND

In every aspect of life – relationships, jobs, hobbies – we experience physical touch. But what truly is “touch”? From the hairs on our head to the stars in the cosmos, everything with mass is made up of atoms, and these atoms are made up of subatomic particles: electrons, protons, neutrons! With the negatively charged electrons orbiting around a nucleus of protons and neutrons, all of these atoms have a negatively charged boundary… but we know like charges repel each other, so how can our atoms “touch”? When we reach to pet a dog or take a step into warm sand, what is actually happening at this atomic level? What does it mean for our atoms to “touch”? In our five posts, we use our knowledge of physics to investigate this mystery of touch and why we feel the sensation of touch.

For our third and final post, we hoped to investigate a scientific wonder that our audiences may have never been considered before: the concept of touch at a subatomic level. Adding a catchy title, we agreed the idea of nothing touching would grab viewers’ attention and allow us to share some scientific information involving subatomic properties. In our posts, we made sure to explain the structure of an atom, how they contribute to our lives and their role in this topic, as well as the sensation of touch. Building from basic concepts and how they exist individually, this post opens up a valuable opportunity for the audience to investigate further how these basic concepts relate to other complex physics ideas.