What happens when you smash two electrons together?

Colliding two electrons will always produce two scattered electrons, and it may sometimes produce some photons from initial and final state radiation. Rarely some extra particle-antiparticle pair (like electron and positron) can pop up.

Do electrons collide with each other?

The question whether or not two electrons in an atom can collide does therefore not make sense. The electrons do, however, interact, mainly by the “inner” electrons screening the nucleus’ charge for the “outer” electrons. Interaction is all that happens quantum mechanically, the notion of collision is meaningless.

Why do electrons not crash into the nucleus?

An electron will only react with a proton in the nucleus via electron capture if there are too many protons in the nucleus. But most atoms do not have too many protons, so there is nothing for the electron to interact with. As a result, each electron in a stable atom remains in its spread-out wavefunction shape.

What happens if you get shot with a particle accelerator?

The danger is the energy. If you stood in front of the beam you would end up with a very sharp, very thin line of ultra-irradiated dead tissue going through your body. It might possibly drill a hole through you. The higher the kinetic energy of a particle, the smaller the fraction of its energy tends to be deposited.

What does colliding particles do?

The goal of colliding particles is to answer questions such as what is all matter made of, and what creates the interactions of matter, in the most fundamental level.

What repels each other in the nucleus?

Inside the nucleus, the attractive strong nuclear force between protons outweighs the repulsive electromagnetic force and keeps the nucleus stable. Outside the nucleus, the electromagnetic force is stronger and protons repel each other.

Should we ever put your head into a particle collider?

So the short answer is that sticking your head inside a particle accelerator should cause a burn hole straight through your skull. Or, if you’re lucky like Bugorski was, you’ll skip the head hole and just have to deal with a slew of other health problems.

Does anything really touch?

Well, technically speaking​, you can’t actually touch anything. This is because the electrons in the atoms that make up your finger and that of the object you’re trying to touch repel each other (according to the basic law of electrostatics).