The Positive and Negative of Electrostatic Forces

You might think that all of these attractive and repulsive forces would just cancel each other out, but that is not what happens. Because of the way electrons are distributed in an atom (remember that an atom is mostly empty space), and the protons are concentrated in a very tiny nucleus, the attractive forces win over the repulsive forces, and there is a net force of attraction. 

You may be wondering if the net electrostatic force is pulling the two atoms together, do they come so close together that effectively the two nuclei touch each other The answer is no, they do not. Remember that there are repulsive forces between the electrons on the two atoms and between the protons on the two atoms. Eventually the forces of repulsion will balance the forces of attraction. When that happens, the atoms two nuclei settle into a fairly stable equilibrium distance from each other. The distance between the two nuclei is called the bond length. Chemists can measure bond lengths and how much energy is stored in chemical bonds. 

Bond length is the distance between the nuclei of two atoms that are bonded together in a molecule. Bond length varies with the state the substance is in (solid, liquid, or gas) because the distance between nuclei is different in different states. 

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