Physicists tell us that all encounters between physical objects can be described in terms of four fundamental forces. Every physical encounter, no matter how complex, can be analyzed into smaller components, which in turn can be analyzed into even smaller components, until at some point every contributing component can be described using only one or more of the four fundamental forces. The four fundamental forces of physics are known as the electromagnetic force, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity.

Gravity is the familiar force holding our bodies to our planet and our planet in orbit around the sun. While we are familiar with the electromagnetic force at work in our televisions and lighting, it is also the force that binds atoms into molecules which in turn make up our bodies and the physical objects around us. Atoms in turn are conglomerates of sub-atomic particles such as protons and neutrons which are held together by the strong and weak nuclear forces.

Newton and Galileo gave us a good understanding of the force of gravity, showing how it arose between objects having mass, such as our bodies and our planet, and that the strength of the force was dependent on how much mass each object had and the distance by which they were separated. The larger the masses of the interacting objects, the stronger the force, while the greater the distance between them, the weaker the force. Einstein later added greater detail to our understanding of gravity that enabled us to make predictions about its effects with extremely high precision.

Similarly, Coulomb demonstrated that the electric force arose between objects having an electric charge, and that the strength of the force depended on the size and polarity of the charge of each object and the distance by which they were separated. The larger the charges involved, the stronger the electric force, the greater the distances between the objects, the weaker the electric force, and whether they attracted or repelled each other depended on the polarity (positive or negative) of their charges. Later the phenomenon of magnetism came to be understood as a by-product of electricity and that forces between magnets were similarly describable in terms of the size and polarity of charges and the distances between them.

These forces all arise as interactions between objects. They do not arise in isolation. They are also universal in that they affect all relevant objects. Every object having mass gravitationally interacts with every other object having mass. My body is gravitationally attracted to everything that has mass, including your body and your dog's body, no matter where you or your dog are. An apple dislodging from a tree actually falls towards every planet in the universe, not only to planet Earth. More so, the apple falls towards every other object on planet Earth including every animal, plant, and stone on it. But because planet Earth is so much nearer to the apple than any other planet, and because Earth has so much more mass than any animal, plant, or stone on it, the gravitational force between the apple and Earth is the one that really counts. For all practical purposes, we only concern ourselves with the apple falling to the Earth. Similarly, the tides of our oceans are determined not only by the gravitational force of our moon, but by the gravitational force of our sun, and to far lesser extents (because of the greater distances involved), by the gravitational forces of the other planets of our solar system, by other suns and their planets, and even by suns and planets in other galaxies. But in calculating the times of the tides, we only consider the gravitational forces of our moon and our sun because the others are too small to have a noticeable effect.

This universality of affect applies to every fundamental interaction. Every object having an electric charge electrically influences every other object having an electric charge, with large distances rendering some influences negligible, and in this case opposite polarities also able to affect an outcome. The situation is a little different in the case of the nuclear interactions but a similar principle applies in that the strength of the forces are affected by the distances between the objects and the strength of their charges.

The fundamental interactions between objects are also mutual in that they act equitably on all the objects involved. The force of gravity between a ball and the earth acts on both the ball and the earth, and is of equal strength on both objects regardless of their relative size or their relative mass. Only the direction of the force is different - the force on the ball is opposite in direction to the force on the earth. Both ball and earth would experience a stronger force if either object had greater mass, and both would experience a weaker force if the distance between them was greater, but the strength of the force on the ball is always the same as the strength of the force on the earth. When objects mutually influence each other, the influence of one on the other is of the same quality and strength as the influence of the other on the one, as it were. One of the objects cannot be said to be the cause of the force and the other only to suffer its effect.

At less fundamental levels, encounters between objects are often not mutual. One object can be said to be a cause and another to suffer an effect, as we often see in everyday life. For example, when a person kicks a ball, we can say that the force of the person's foot on the ball is the same as the force of the ball on the person's foot, but we cannot say that the ball is as determined to kick the person as the person is to kick the ball. The person is the obvious cause and the ball flying into the goal-mouth is the obvious effect.

Connective and Binding Interactions

I start my story with mutual interactions between objects, such as those involving the fundamental forces.

It is important to understand that objects participating in these interactions are responsive to each other. They may respond, for example, to changes in each other's masses or charges, to changes in the distances between them or to their orientations to one another. If one changes its situation relative to the others then the others will all make suitable adjustments to their relative positions and motions.

But in some situations an interaction will lock into constraint, whereby it restricts the responses of its objects to a specific range or probability distribution. The constrained objects can no longer respond completely freely to each other. For example, if a proton and an electron (interacting using the electromagnetic force between them) get very close to each other and are not moving too fast they can lock into constraint. With their responses constrained they can't stray too far from each other so the constraint has bound them together, and in this binding they have become an atom (of hydrogen). Not all interactions between protons and electrons are constrained (because a conducive arrangement has not come about) so not all interactions between protons and electrons constitute atoms. When protons and electrons interact outside atoms they are free to respond to each other without constraint. In the sun, for example, protons and electrons interact freely in what is called a plasma - a sort of soup of interacting individual protons and electrons that do not constitute atoms (though many do).

(Locking into constraint is not the same as being captured to an orbit, as will become clear shortly.)

A constraint on an interaction is not imposed from outside the interaction but is intrinsic to the interaction itself, in the above example, between only this proton and that electron. No other forces or objects are involved. And once constrained an interaction will remain constrained even if the arrangement that triggered the constraining passes. Moreover, an interaction will always lock into constraint when and where its arrangement is conducive.

Why do constraints arise? We don't know, though the Pauli Exclusion Principle is often invoked to explain them. I myself see constraint (and Pauli exclusion) to be as fundamental a phenomenon as the fundamental forces themselves. (Why do the fundamental forces arise? We also don't know.)

When an interaction locks into constraint its nature is significantly altered. The force utilized in the interaction remains the same but the participating objects' responses are noticeably stifled. Indeed, if their range of constraint is very narrow the participating objects may even appear to not respond to each other at all. A locking into constraint is a clear-cut singular event, in that the nature of the interaction is distinctly different before and after the event.

When many interacting objects lock into a constraint, a number of ranges may be utilized: A carbon atom, for example, constrains six electrons and six protons in two different ranges. There may be other sub-atomic objects in an atom besides protons and electrons and many more layers of complexity to their interaction, but delving into these complexities does not add to my story. All I want is to convey the idea of an interaction being intrinsically constrained.

When an interaction is intrinsically constrained, as when a proton and electron constitute an atom, I call the interaction a binding interaction, or a bond for short, because the interaction binds the objects together. When an interaction is not constrained, as when protons and electrons are in a plasma, I call the interaction a connective interaction, or a connective for short, because the objects connect with each other without binding.

Objects participating in a connective respond freely to the forces they exert on each other while objects in a bond only respond to the extent that their constraint permits. Objects in a connective will also respond freely to any external forces acting on them, while the responses of those in a bond will be restricted by their constraint. So a bond not only constrains the responses of its constituent objects to the forces between them, it also constrains their responses to external forces. A connective on the other hand imposes no constraint on its participating objects - they respond completely freely to each other and to all relevant external forces.

Interactions between physical objects are either binding or connective - they are either constrained or they are not. Interactions that appear to be constrained in some ways and unconstrained in others are compound mixtures of connective and binding interactions. In the same way that every encounter between physical objects can ultimately be described in terms of one or more of the four fundamental forces, every encounter between physical objects can ultimately be analyzed into interactions that are connective or binding.

More examples of connective and binding interactions are given in Chapter 4 when their features have been more clearly distinguished.

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