It’s somehow being repelled and attracted to stay on my hands at the same time
Why don’t all the rocks roll off big mountains?
It is a matter of extreme scales between the size of a particle of dirt and the scale of atomic force.
The issue is how narrow of a scope of scale is available to you in human intuitive experience. The real universe is far far larger and far far smaller than what it seems.
For things that stick, you can imagine that when the molecules are close, but not too close, they attract each other because of the molecules’ overall electromagnetic charges result in attraction. But once they get really close, the actual distribution of each molecule’s charge starts to matter, and in particular the negatively charged electron clouds get close to each other first, and repel.
What this guy said. Two different electrical charges.
There are multiple phisical forces at play. One force preventing two atoms beeing touched and one attracting stuff you touch.
I recently made this comment. This post reminds me again of that :D
That’s misconception. Touching is literally reaching close enough for the repelling barrier to work. And dirt sticks to hands because it’s wet (or your hands are wet/oily, same thing) . Water acts like a glue on small scale
I recommend this video by Sixty Symbols, the same production of Numberphile and Computerphile in case you’ve heard of them.
But basically, when atoms are close enough to each other they attract each other (van der Waals force), which can cause things to stick to each other even without chemical bonds.
"BUT YOUR HONOR, I DID NOT STAB THE VICTIM, I DID NOT EVEN TOUCH¹ THE KNIFE!
¹scientifically speaking"
something like vander waals forces applies in certain situations.
