Quote:
Originally Posted by ravens_cry
By the bonds 'break down' do you mean the mechanical stress, or is something else happening here?
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I can only take it as far as mechanical stress.
I'm sure breaking would occur first. Maybe there is some kind of process similar to liquification.
But; maybe somebody here can answer a more specific question. When a solid something breaks, what kind of forces are overcoming what other kind of forces and how are those forces transmitted from the source?
For example: I break a pencil. Is it just a matter of all those EM fields pressing against the pencil being cascaded through the pencil until there is an area with so little EM connections that the force finally overpowers that area?