THE ELECTRICAL FORCE

What makes a solid behave as it does? Why, if you place a concrete block on a concrete floor, does the block not gradually sink into the floor or meld with the floor so that you can’t pick it up again later? Why, if you strike a brick wall with your fist, are you likely to hurt yourself rather than having your fist go into the bricks? Internally, atoms are mostly empty space; this is true even in the most dense solids we see on Earth. Why can’t solid objects pass through one another the way galaxies sometimes do in outer space or the way dust clouds do in the atmosphere? They’re mostly empty space too, and they can pass through each other easily.
The answer to this question lies in the nature of the electrical forces within and around atoms. Every atomic nucleus is surrounded by “shells” of electrons, all of which are negatively charged. Objects with electrical charges of the same polarity (negative-negative or positive-positive) always repel. The closer together two objects with like charge come to each other, the more forcefully they repel. Thus, even when an atom has an equal number of electrons and protons so that it is electrically neutral as a whole, the charges are concentrated in different places. The positive charge is contained in the nucleus, and the negative charge surrounds the nucleus in one or more concentric spheres.
Suppose that you could shrink down to submicroscopic size and stand on the surface of a sheet of, say, elemental aluminum. What would you see?

Below you, the surface would appear something like a huge field full of basketballs (Fig. 1). You would find it difficult to walk on this surface because it would be irregular. However, you would find the balls quite resistant to penetration by other balls. All the balls would be negatively charged, so they would all repel each other. This would keep them from passing through each other and also would keep the surface in a stable, fixed state. The balls would be mostly empty space inside, but there wouldn’t be much space in between them. They would be just about as tightly packed as spheres can be.

Fig. 1. In a solid, the outer electron shells of the atoms are packed tightly. (This drawing is greatly oversimplified.)

The foregoing is an oversimplification, but it should give you an idea of the reason why solids normally don’t pass through each other and in fact why many solids resist penetration even by liquids such as water or gases such as air.