One of Feyman's famous quotes is
"If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another."
It seems that he could only be referring to the electromagnetic force since the other three fundamental forces don't apply. But I'm having trouble visualizing this. My question is, how, based upon different distances, does the electromagnetic force produce the two opposite forces Feynman mentions?
