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When people say: "When you sit in a chair like I'm sitting in this chair right now"
当人们说："当你坐在椅子上，就像我现在坐在这把椅子上一样"
"I'm actually hovering over this chair"
"其实我在椅子的上空"
"but actually my butt is hovering above the chair by this just tiny tiny amout"
"但其实我的屁股在椅子的上空 只是极小极小的距离"，
"because of the electrons of my body"
"因为我身体的电子"
"because the electrons of my butt"
"因为我屁股上的电子"
"are repelling the electrons of this chair"
"击退椅子的电子"
"it's not us actually touching the subatomic material of the object"
"这不是我们真正触碰物体的亚原子物质"
Is that really true?
这是真的吗？
Does it mean that MC Hammer has just been singing about physics all along?
真的像MC Hammer对物理唱的那样吗？
"Can't touch this !!"
"不能碰 !!"
Alas, this doesn't take into account the fact that the universe is quantum mechanical
唉, 这里没有考虑到一个事实——宇宙是量子力学
For example, you probably know that electrons behave like spread-out waves
比如，你知道，电子也像波
and from chemistry, you probably also know that it's perfectly fine for two negatively charged electrons to share the same energy level of an atom or a molecule
在化学中，你可能也知道一个原子或分子内完全可以有两个负电子具有相同的能量等级
as long as they have their intrinsic spins oriented in opposite directions
只要它们固有的自旋方向相反
So, even though electrons repel each other their wave packets can overlap.
所以，即使电子互相排斥，波包可以重叠
For example, check out this image of a ring of iron atoms sitting on a surface of copper.
例如，看这个铁原子环 它在铜表面上
see the overlap of the spread out electrons?
看到重叠而拱起的电子吗
Now, would you call that touching?
现在，你还会说他们是相触碰的吗
If you look at a dictionnary, touch is usually defined as physical contact.
如果你查字典，触碰通常定义为触摸，如身体触摸。
Well, contact is defined as touching physically.
好了，触摸的定义是触摸身体。
Not much help.
没多大帮助。
But most of people have this intuitive idea that touch is something like two solid objects so close together there is no space between them.
但大多数人有这种直观的想法，即接触是在两个固体间的并拢时，它们之间没有空间
The trouble is this doesn't have anything to do with overlapping waves which, as we know, are how electrons actually behave.
麻烦的是，它们的波并没有因电子而叠加
So, it seems that touch is a word that may just be incapable of describing the actual universe as we understand it today.
所以，触碰只是一个词，并不能实际描述我们今天所理解的宇宙
Either that, or we should change our notion of touch to mean interaction at short distance which is really what happens between electrons when you sit on a chair.
或者，我们应该转变触碰的观念，意思为当你坐在椅子上时，短距离内电子间的相互作用
But, regardless of whether or not we ever actually touch anything I think that when we talk about the electromagnetic repulsion of your butt and your chair,
但是，无论我们是否碰到东西，讨论你屁股和椅子电磁排斥的时候
what we are really trying to say is
我真正想说的是，
Hey! Remember how cool it is that we are made of atoms and molecules and that other people made of atoms and molecules were clever enough to figure that out.
嘿！由原子和分子组成的我们却拥有智慧来解决问题，真奇妙！
Now, that is touching.
触动人心
