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When I was thinking about mechanical forces being electromagnetic in nature , This question came to my mind , How do we exert such large forces when at the microscopic scale we moved such a small distance:

For example lets take a rod , If we press it with our palm at one of the ends and other end to the wall , we are applying some force to it , however if we generate "more force" from our hand we see that some deformation(even though negligible sometimes) happens .Then if they are electromagnetic in nature and we did not even move our hands by very much just thrusting our hand to the rod , How did this "more force" produce.

I am Kind of foggy in the Idea of forces in a microscopic scale , Any help would help me a lot!

Naveen V
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    Does this answer your question? How exactly is a normal force exerted, at the molecular level? – John Rennie Mar 29 '23 at 06:21
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    The energy in chemical bonds is on the order of hundreds of kJ/mol. The energy in your example is in the low Joule range. In other words... a slight deformation of chemical bonds (and intramolecular forces) will do. Is that what you are asking? – FlatterMann Mar 29 '23 at 06:27
  • yes that and how the mechanism of generating "more force" takes place @FlatterMann – Naveen V Mar 29 '23 at 06:50
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    Like I said, there is a slight deformation of the chemical bonds. My guess would be that it's easiest to analyze in ionic crystals and metals and then it get's increasingly harder in organic materials and "soft" systems where molecules can slide against each other. A literature search for "hardness" and "tensile strength" for "ionic crystals" and "covalent materials" seems to produce quite a few results... but I won't comment on those publications. It's not my specialty. – FlatterMann Mar 29 '23 at 09:30

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