I was wondering why atoms, when pulled apart and then released, attract together, but I notice that there is a special distance at which this attractive force doesn't seem to act but rather those atoms repel each other when pushed even closer. So my first analogy was a bar magnet, here's a diagram: The poles face opposite of each other and thus attract, no matter how far or close I place the magnet apart, as long as they're opposite poles they will indeed attract. So obviously, this isn't the right analogy, at least to my knowledgeable extent, to represent my solution. Another thing I notice is using the Spring analogy as the interactive force between these particles, but for the sake of this question, please try not to include that analogy or anything similar as personally I find it a circular argument. In other words, if you were to say the atoms/molecules have a spring-like mechanism and act just like a regular spring you might find at a lab, I'll be asking, similarly, "How do the atoms in that laboratory spring work at a molecular level?" And you'll be answering, again, "just like the one at the lab" This is what I meant by the "question loop". Moving on, it looks like there's a sort of attractive, and at the same time repulsive force acting on both atoms. The illustration below shows a pretty good idea about it: We could see that the protons attract the electrons and the other way around. Main Question So if this was the case. Why do atoms attract each other at farther distances instead of continuously getting repelled by one another? And vice versa : Why do atoms repel each other at shorter distances instead of continuously getting attracted by one another? *Note that what I mean by closer , is the distance between those 2 atoms that is smaller than it naturally is, and the same case with what I mean by farther . Apologies if this is more of a Chemistry-like question, for the time being, I'll be posting this on PSE. I haven't entered any topic on this (currently in high school), which I know is a Uni material, but I'm just very curious about a lot of things. Any intuitive and concise explanation would mean a lot to me!