**Ask a monkey a physics question thread**

[a500lbgorilla]

When I measure the width of a poker chip, should I do it at the edge of the outermost atomic nuclei, or at the farthest trajectory point of their electrons?

Also, how hard do I need to squeeze the chip to force the electrons to clump together with the nuclei, and is this observed in nature? Neutron stars, black holes?

There's a thing called electron degeneracy pressure - it's loosely electron's tendency to not occupy the same space in the same time. You pretty much need a supernova to squeeze atoms so close their electron shells break and you're left with just clumped neutrons - ie neutron stars.

The electron shell is what holds everything up, except for when it's defeated - neutron stars and black holes. It's neutron degeneracy pressure which holds up neutron stars. Which leads me to my question, MMM, what holds up black holes?

[MadMojoMonkey]

There's a thing called electron degeneracy pressure - it's loosely electron's tendency to not occupy the same space in the same time. You pretty much need a supernova to squeeze atoms so close their electron shells break and you're left with just clumped neutrons - ie neutron stars.

Yep, yep, yep.

I gave a more physical description of the "electron shells break" part in my prior post.

The electron shell is what holds everything up, except for when it's defeated - neutron stars and black holes. It's neutron degeneracy pressure which holds up neutron stars. Which leads me to my question, MMM, what holds up black holes?

Nothing, my rilla. Nothing at all. Or at least, we don't know what's going on beyond an event horizon.

A black hole is a region of spacetime which is so curved that there are no time-like paths which extend an arbitrarily large distance away.

Black holes are sneaky little things that wrap themselves in event horizon, so very tricksy to tell what's going on in there.