system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How does friction work if objects never actually touch?
gpt
Also as a pedantic point: the whole "they never actually touch" thing is kind of silly to claim. The quantum world behaves differently than the macroscopic world. No electrons ever "touch" in the quantum world. It's an entirely trivial statement to make. They're repelled by forces and perhaps Pauli-exclusion pressure before they ever "touch." So as long as we modify to a very reasonable definition of "touching" as "close enough for electrons to interact significantly" then we're fine.