So.
Bam!
They shattered.
You could feel the orange seeds, the juice, the peel.
And so again.
You learned this is what an orange is like—seeds, juice, peel.
This is essentially what a collider does.
In the microscopic world, the orange juice turns into all kinds of charged or uncharged particles.
If you want to separate them, you need to expend a certain amount of energy—that is, the force from smashing two large bags of oranges together.
So how much energy does it take to separate matter into its constituents at different scales?
The forces between molecules are the weakest, averaging below 0.1 eV—eV stands for electronvolt, which is the amount of energy gained by one electron moving across one volt of potential difference.
This is an extremely small unit; its effect on the human body might feel like an ant bite.
Chemical bonds require a bit more.
Between 0.1 and 10 eV.
Inner shell electrons are at the level of several to dozens of keV.
Nucleons are above MeV.
