-
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.
-
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 .
-
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... http://www.hostboard.com/ubb/styles/...lete_topic.jpg
-
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]
-
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.
-
<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]
-
I forgot to add....zela, good job explaining [img]smile.gif[/img] I'm qualified to say that [img]wink.gif[/img]
-
<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....
-
also... in your research (both of you guys)...
please explain how these results are in effect
for instances such as a hologram
-
<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)
-
<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:
also... in your research (both of you guys)...
please explain how these results are in effect
for instances such as a hologram</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
Eh? A hologram is just a projection that is '3d'.
I'm not completely sure what you mean by that
[img]confused.gif[/img]
-
Before I start, I apologize for the poor translation of certain terms/laws. Since I'm not sure how to translate some of them, I'll use an explanation.
<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">what is the force that keeps your cells
together.... </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
There are two types of electric charges: positive and negative. Opposite charges attract one another and the 'attractive' force between them is proportional to the amount of electrics of the positive charge (+Q1) and the negative charge (-Q2) and disproportional to the square of the distance between the charges (r).
So, the smaller the distance between the charges get, the stronger the attractive force is. However, if the distance gets too small, they start pulling away from each other. Why is that? Energy. There is an optimal energy state for every atom, molecule, compound, etc.
Every atom has protons and neutrons in the nucleus, and electrons in the ?electronic cloud?. Electrons emit electromagnetic waves with specific wave lengths that form a spectrum (continuous and lineal). Characteristic lines of hydrogen are made of doubles, which only slightly vary in wave lengths, which means that electrons that emit them vary very little in energy. These doubles are also known as ?spins? (I?m simplifying). Every electron acts as a little magnet with N and S pole. This is b/c an electron is negatively charged and its rotation around itself gives it a ?spinal magnetic moment?.
A magnetic field exists in the atom itself b/c of the rotation of the electron(s) around the nucleus and it effects the magnetic field of the spin of the electron changing the energy of the system.
Wave nature of electrons and their energy state in the atom are described by Schr?dinger?s wave equation and wave functions (amplitude) must have constant values to go with this equation. There are 3 such constants and their values are called ?quant numbers? (they are dependant on each other). Wave function that describes a specific combination of these 3 numbers (which tells you the allowed energy state of the electron) is called an orbital. Every orbital matches a particular value of energy. Combination of orbitals make shells (K,L,M,N,O,P,Q).
K only has an s-orbital (1 orbital). L has s- and p- (3 orbitals). M has s-, p- and d- (5 orbitals).
According to the first Hund rule, electrons spread among degenerated orbitals (the ones with the same energy) so that the number of unpaired electrons is the highest b/c the cloud of electron charges is then maximally spread across the atom and the atom has the lowest energy state.
When atoms combine to make a molecule or a compound, their goal is also to achieve a state of the lowest energy state.
Molecular wave function is a combination of two or more wave function, every one of which partially describes the molecule. The theory of molecular orbitals says that when atomic nuclei are at a specific distance from each other, molecular orbitals are formed from atomic orbitals of the two atoms. The electrons of these atoms enter these newly formed orbitals. There are different types of molecular orbitals and they are formed by combining s- and s- orbitals, or s- with p-, s- with d-, ?. And only atomic molecules of the same simetry can form a molecular orbital. This is the basis for chemical bounds.
As you can see, there is no divine plan here, just a set of rules that electrons follow based on their energy, so I?d say that is the force that keeps everything together, and ultimately the cells too.
I? not sure about the hologram either. Fotons and light? Energy. I dunno.
-
Olives [img]eek.gif[/img]
-
(for any extra explanation or questions, you know how to reach me on yahoo)
-
<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 Cyalaytr:
Olives [img]eek.gif[/img] </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
Should I not have posted that long boring reply? [img]tongue.gif[/img]
-
Oh no that more so in reply to Shatzy never ending quest to know all the answers to everything such as how they earth started spinning this way instead of that way or why the ocean waves come towards us instead of away from us. So instead of being sucked into some quantum physics arguement that will go circle before answered by no one here who has yet to win the nobel prize... I last checked. I was reverting back to something simple and on my mind. Olives. I want olives on my pizza. HMMM which is circular in nature but only by accident as when they spin the pizza in the air it tends to be drawn out in a circular pattern equally around the edges and yet no one really seems to know why.
CYA
<font color="#6699ff" size="1">[ June 24, 2003 10:02 PM: Message edited by: Cyalaytr ]</font>
-
This is discussed sort of at length in my book I have.. however... I dont feel like copying page for page for page.
It's got an interesting edge to the whole problem you just posed shatzy.
I've told you about this book many times, and was gonna send it to you once... I simply never got around to. my fault [img]frown.gif[/img]
-
*smiles softly and continues to chase butterflies* [img]graemlins/sun.gif[/img]
-
are olives really circular by nature?
perhaps it is the will of the olive to be round!
(jk!)
ok... getting on what ivana said....
(allow me to brutally hack at your post)
<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 ivana:
When atoms combine to make a molecule or a compound, their goal is also to achieve a state of the lowest energy state. {...}
As you can see, there is no divine plan here, just a set of rules that electrons follow based on their energy, so I?d say that is the force that keeps everything together, and ultimately the cells too.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
ok... two things....
#1 --
the way its described... this process is similar
(though somewhat) to the laws of gravity... despite
the size of the objects in pull/rotation/orbit/conjunction....
be it inter-galactic entities or sub-atomic entities....
and while the law of gravity seeeeeems stable...
nothing (from what i know) defines how one thing
is positive/negative over another but in its
sheer reaction to another thing....
in other words... you can speak of magnetic/gravitational
forces and their effects... but does that necessitate
that it can only be defined by its reaction?
secondly, its simple to state that positive
and negative entities repel... and this reaction
is justified on the basis of energy (components,
waves, and 'states')... but that STILL only
seems to justify energy on the basis of its
reaction in regards to another 'thing'....
and nothing of its true 'self'....
i can explain that the moon is in orbit to the
earth, and the earth in orbit to the sun...
in a similar fashion as that of sub-atomic
entities (but on a larger scale).... but it
doesn't justify gravity in itself....
meaning... would gravity exist if there were
just one object?
this carries me into #2 --
ivana mentions 'lowest energy state' and 'rules
that follow a certain blah blah blah'.....
(and i wonder if your 'engergy state' is different
than how i interpreted it)
but this doesn't necessitate basic principles
of energy (in itself) unless in flux with another
'thing'....
so what i'm saying is....
you can divide an atom in 'half' and dissect
its components... then justify why those components
react the way they do.... (we'll call this 'X')
but it doesn't determine the properties of X
in itself..... but only in contrast to the
reactions X creates.
er.... does this make any sense??? [img]confused.gif[/img] [img]redface.gif[/img]
-
<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">the way its described... this process is similar
(though somewhat) to the laws of gravity... </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
True. Phyical formulae that describe these forces are similar.
<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">you can divide an atom in 'half' and dissect
its components... then justify why those components
react the way they do.... (we'll call this 'X')
but it doesn't determine the properties of X
in itself..... but only in contrast to the
reactions X creates.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
Actually, you can determine the properties of X in itself but I didn't go into that cos, honestly, it's hard to fit a whole semestar into one post and it would be impossible for me to make a little summary when there would be a bunch of things in it that would require explaining. There is a great book that I used that explains thses things in detail. Unfortulatelly, there isn't an english version out there [img]frown.gif[/img]
