Have you ever really touched anything in your life? What do you think it was?

Question

And is?

Answer 1

One of my physics professors believed we can never truly touch anything. The outer part of every atom is the electrons. Since electrons are all negative, when we try to touch something our own electrons would cause a repulsion of the electrons in the object we are trying to touch. He believed that we actually feel the electrons repelling each other - not the actual object. The electric repulsion would be too great for our hands to actually touch the object.

Answer 2

In some sense, we never actually touch anything at all - the electrostatic forces between the atoms that make us and the surrounding environment ensure that the closest we can ever come is a few fractions of a nanometre.

Answer 3

And even if you could overcome the repulsion between the electrons, most of the atom is empty space, so the nuclei would probably miss each other anyway.

Answer 4

I've been touched many times in my life by tears.

Answer 5

I touched the spinning blade of my angle grinder yesterday. I thought it was painful.