An illusion that is touching

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology, or Medicine, is truly touching. David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian have been rewarded for their groundbreaking work on how the human nervous system senses heat, cold and mechanical stimuli. This may be something we take for granted - flinch when the fire on the matchstick nears our fingers, flinch again when an ice cube is slid down our shirt front, scream when the hammerhead lands on our thumb instead on the nail. But how the message from that point of contact is sent to our brain, and then back again to activate our reaction, fills many gaps on how this machine called the body works. Kudos.

But, as usual, we would like to think ourselves to be wiser than Nobel laureates. Thus, the question - a scientific, not a mumbo-jumbo mystical, one - do we really touch? Electrons that exist in every atom of our bodies push other electrons in every atom of other bodies or things. This electron repulsion ensures that we never touch anything, unless it punctures our body. So, what is non-pricking tactile responses? The sense of touch that our brains register is actually electron repulsion and the electromagnetic field that permeates everything and everyone. So, don't worry about getting too close to someone or something. In the truest sense, it's nothing but an illusion, Julius and Patapoutian notwithstanding.