Hi, we're here from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.

I'm Cody Gough.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about your body's electromagnetic field, why you probably never learned that ancient Greek and Roman statues used to be brightly colored,

and the surprising trick to a winning pept talk.

Let's win!

Some curiosity.

Physicists have confirmed we do have an electromagnetic field, and here's why. Our atoms, which were made of, are mostly

empty space. If the nucleus of an atom was, say, the size of a marble, the farthest electrons to orbit

it would be about a football field away. So with all that empty space, why don't atoms pass right

through each other?

The answer lies in the electric field that surrounds each atom.

The electrons exist as a cloud of quantum probabilities,

each on certain energy levels at set distances from the nucleus with set amounts of

electrons allowed on each orbital level at a time. An electron can jump from one

energy level or orbital to another. But in order to do this you need an exchange of energy.

So when two objects get close to each other, their electrons begin a coordinated dance.

We've talked about it on this podcast before but this dance of electrons prevents anything from ever

actually touching anything else. If someone punched you in the face, the

electrons of the atoms in that person's fist are pushed into the space of the electrons of the atoms in, say, your nose.

But since the face electrons are already occupying the lower energy orbits,

the fist electrons would have to hop into a higher energy orbital to really touch.

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