Ask A Genius 1258: Tender Beings
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/02/14
Rick Rosner: Okay, here goes: Think about how we are made of gossamer forces, yet torn apart by the wimpiest of a star’s core, which had to exert immense pressure and heat sources. To form a nucleus containing more than a single hydro and heat. Once assembled, the nucleus attracts electrons held in place by relatively feeble forces. The net force at any distance is negligible when all electrons are in place.
Consider those 50‑foot steel beams at the gym—spanning a huge space without numerous supports—their job is to resist gravity, which is, ironically, the weakest force of all. Our bodies, and indeed all matter, are held together by residual forces like van der Waals interactions, which are extraordinarily weak. This fragility is evident in how a fall in Earth’s modest gravitational field can break us.
Even planets only hold together because they contain an astronomical number of atoms. In our world, nearly every interaction is governed by these delicate, gossamer forces. The only place where you regularly see high-energy particle interactions is in the center of a star, where fusion—the one force that isn’t so wimpy—occurs. You could argue that fission is similarly robust, but everything remains remarkably fragile outside those extremes.
Consider how our existence is built from remarkably fragile forces. Fusion—the process that combines atomic nuclei—requires immense pressure and heat, yet even fusion is less forceful than fission. In fission, you take such heavy nuclei that they become unstable and break them apart with only a modest nudge; this process is even “wimpier” than fusion. Although there have been a few accidental nuclear events in human history, it takes tremendous effort to assemble enough fissionable material for an atomic bomb. Even then, converting matter into energy releases only about one-tenth of one percent of the mass. It’s wild that our existence and history are built from these feeble, residual forces. Comments? None.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In a way, we evolved in a system defined by these fragile forces. It takes an enormous universe to build the conditions—planets orbiting suns—that allow ordered, negentropic systems (life) to emerge.
Rosner: We are, essentially, tender beings who have managed to exist on Earth for a billion years. It takes a vast universe to set up these oases of order without our fragile structures being obliterated.
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