seeking information.....

[SHATOUSHKA]

so i was invovled in a rather lengthy,
frustrating conversation about the 'thing'
that makes you whole....

what is the force that keeps your cells
together.... the force that causes you to
lose skin cells in exchange for couch lint?

what is the force that segregates your cells
from you and the couch? what is the force that
allows you to sit on the couch and not
be consumed by the couch (and vice versa)?

what is it that keeps these atoms together
in a consistant shape but doesn't allow
the books on the shelf to mold together until
you pick one out?

sure, on a sub-atomic level, you are losing
and replacing 'things'... but wholy you are
you, a CD remains a CD, smoke remains smoke,
your hair remains your hair even though its
somehow connected to your head....

wtf is that???

anyone with a slight idea, answer or maybe some
links.... please post.... lol.

[zelazny]

oh dear, time to get back to my chemistry and physics lessons..
eehm.. let's see. First of all, let's starts of with molecules and energy. There's energy stored in a lot of things, when you hold up a mass, it has potential energy in the form of kinetic energy, which it gets when you drop it.
Same sort of goes for molecules, certain bonds between atoms form molecules which are at the (local) minimum as far as energy goes.

H2 and O2 have potential energy, and when you add a little extra energy in the form of heat you kickstart a reaction where they react and form H2O and a lot of energy radiates out in the form of heat. That molecule, H2O, has less energy stored in it* and is therefore more stable.
Now most of the molecules in your body are stable, or in an enviroment that keeps them stable. So that's working on a molecular level (not-so-fun fact, when you would burn, what happens is that the added energy from the heat 'breaks' the molecules in your body down to smaller fragments which then react with the oxygen in the athmosphere and actually feed the fire itself.).

Now: Deeper, if you look at the molecule, it consists of several atoms, which, for some reason, remain in that specific configuration (i.e. it's stable). apparently these atoms are in the (local) minimum energy state.
Now if you look at atoms in molecules, you'll notice that each type of atom wants a specific amount of 'bonds' (Like H2O : there are 2 bonds, basically it's H-O-H). Oxygen wants two, carbon wants four, hydrogen just one. Now why they 'want' those specific amounts of bonds will come on later, but for now believe me that an atom which does not have a bond it could have yet has potential energy, in the sense that the making of a bond will result in a state where there is less potential energy in the created molecule as a whole.
(Damn, that was a long sentence).
So, basically, the molecules in your body are 'finished'. Same as those of the chair you sit on, or those in the keyboard you are typing on. So that's why your molecules don't just desintegrate.

As far as molecules sticking together goes : i'll have to explain that bond thing first :
Basically, an atom is a positively charged 'core' consisting out of protons (which have a positive charge), usually some neutrons (neutral particles in the core, to keep the core itself from falling apart due to the extra mass keeping itself together) and electrons, which are negatively charged and.. well.. are whirling around the core. (Let's not get into what an electron is, that's a lot of work)
Now the most 'stable' (read: energetically low) way for those electrons to hang around the core is in certain 'shells'. sort of like orbits, there's a few stable orbits, in which electrons hang about. Each with a number of electrons that can go in it.

Now imagine different atoms (just count upwards, one proton, two protons , etc..) with the electrons whirling around them. it starts with hydrogen, with one proton, and one electron in the first shell. Then comes helium, with two protons, (also two neutrons, but that doesn't really mean anything to this story) so it has two electrons whirling around it in the first shell. Now the shell is full, and for the next atom we add the extra proton to the core, and we add the next electron to the second shell (and some neutrons to keep the core of the atom stable).
Now let's take hydrogen again. It has one electron in it's outer shell, which means the outer shell is not full, but that's not the most energetically low state, it 'wants' to have another electron in it's shell, but the atom itself cannot hold the extra electron.
Now if you look at oxygen, it has a number of shells, but the outer shell misses two electrons.
So when you can get the hydrogen and oxygen to get together they'll end up in the most energetically low state, namely the two hydrogen atoms get closer to the oxygen, and they sort of 'lend' their outer electron to eachother, in such a way that the hydrogen now has two electrons in it's outer shell, between it and the oxygen, and the oxygen just got two new electrons to it's outer shell (Between itself and the hydrogen atoms) so the whole situation just became more stable and will remain so.

Now, why your molecules all stick together :
Think back to that H2O molecule, do you see it? 3 atoms, who are all pulling at the electrons inbetween them and keeping eachother stable?
Now, oxygen is a lot more positively charged than hydrogen is, and will pull the electrons closer to itself than it is to the hydrogen. (greedy little bastard). Which leads to a local negative charge around the oxygen part, and a slight positive charge around the hydrogen parts of the molecule. Now this happens in every O-H bond.
those local negative charges will attract local positive charges, and vice versa, so if you have.. say two water molecules nearby eachother, the hydrogen part of molecule water molecule A will be attracted to the oxygen part of molecule B, and vice versa. not sure if i translate it correct, but these type of 'bonds' (they are much weaker than the bonds in molecules, but they still require some energy to overcome) are called hydrogen-bridges.
If you put your finger in a bowl of water and raise it slightly above the water you'll see that the water clings to your finger up to a certain point, all that water is being 'held up' by those hydrogen bridges.

Now that's about all i remember, but basically, it's those hydrogen-bridges type of bonds that keep your molecules together.
And there's tonnes of other effects at work too, but that would take even more time to explain and i think this post is gonna be huge without me trying to cram all that next to this ill-written excerpt of my chemistry lessons .

[KingBean]

I was gonna say something along those lines, but it woulda been in WAY less detail. My chemistry days have come flowing back to me... ahhh.....

*clears throat*

A-hem...

[SHATOUSHKA]

LMMFAO, KN!!! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

but zela... i understand what you are saying...
but if you were to go further into the scheme
of the 'charges' of each sub-unit... it doesn't
explain why that unit is 'together'

er... you see?

you are familiar with the trivial 'god argument'
for half of a half of a half of a half of a half
of a half of a half of a half of a half of a half...

and how there is never any centralized point...
because each successive center point can be
halved...

this is where i'm going [img]redface.gif[/img]

[zelazny]

Ah! but because you can go in 'deeper' does not mean that the effects we see at the higher level are all of a sudden not.

[Ivana]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">Originally posted by shatzy:
LMMFAO, KN!!! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

but zela... i understand what you are saying...
but if you were to go further into the scheme
of the 'charges' of each sub-unit... it doesn't
explain why that unit is 'together'

er... you see?

</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think I might have the answer somewhere but I'm not sure it's the answer you're looking for. Time to revise some details I knew 4 years ago. I'll get back to you [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Ivana]

I forgot to add....zela, good job explaining [img]smile.gif[/img] I'm qualified to say that [img]wink.gif[/img]

[SHATOUSHKA]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">Originally posted by zelazny:
Ah! but because you can go in 'deeper' does not mean that the effects we see at the higher level are all of a sudden not.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

aye....

i understand that (from what we know) because
a law may be true for the bigger scheme, it
should support a smaller scheme....

but i suppose i don't understand why we repel
certain properties...

a notebook contains pages that are similar in
properties... and yet the pages do not meld
together....

[SHATOUSHKA]

also... in your research (both of you guys)...
please explain how these results are in effect
for instances such as a hologram

[zelazny]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">Originally posted by shatzy:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><font size=2 face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">Originally posted by zelazny:
Ah! but because you can go in 'deeper' does not mean that the effects we see at the higher level are all of a sudden not.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

aye....

i understand that (from what we know) because
a law may be true for the bigger scheme, it
should support a smaller scheme....

but i suppose i don't understand why we repel
certain properties...

a notebook contains pages that are similar in
properties... and yet the pages do not meld
together....</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, but the molecular structure in the paper is rigid, it would be required to be made into a pulp that could dry to get a new form (get your notebook wet, and watch all the pages starting to stick together)