In the world of particle physics, the rule ‘like repels, opposites attract’ reigns supreme. Yet, a team of chemists from the University of Oxford has uncovered a fascinating tale of attraction in a test tube, demonstrating that love will always find a way—even between particles of the same charge.
Lead author Sida Wang expresses his ongoing fascination with this phenomenon, noting that even after countless observations, the sight of particles attracting each other never fails to captivate.
Conventionally, negatively charged particles repel each other due to Coulomb’s law, as do positively charged ones. However, when suspended in a solution, the rules appear to shift.
Through meticulous experiments involving silica particles in various solvents, the researchers discovered that negatively charged particles in water-based solutions exhibited unexpected behavior—they were drawn together instead of being repelled. Surprisingly, this attraction was influenced by factors such as pH levels and molecular structure of the solvent.
Even more intriguingly, positively charged particles didn’t display this behavior in aqueous solutions but exhibited attraction in alcohol-based solvents.
Termed the “electrosolvation force,” this phenomenon occurs when the structure of the solution interacts with the surfaces of suspended particles, creating a net attractive force that overcomes their natural repulsion.
These findings have far-reaching implications across scientific disciplines, from pharmaceuticals to nanotechnology, shedding light on the complex interactions of charged particles in solution. In a world where even like-charged particles can find love against all odds, human romance suddenly seems less complicated.
Read Now:Mystery Unveiled of TOI-270 d A Potentially Watery Exoplanet by the James Webb Space Telescope
