How does glue actually work? Why does it make things stick together?
” Research continues to this day on exactly what happens when two objects stick together. There’s no universally accepted theory, and given the variety of adhesives more than one process may be at work. It’s generally agreed that adhesion occurs at the molecular level, the chief processes involved being Van der Waals forces, ionic bonding, covalent bonding, and metallic bonding. The last three types of bonding are the result of chemical reactions that don’t have much to do with glue, so we’ll confine our discussion to Van der Waals forces, with a little excursion into mechanical bonding thrown in.” See the rest of this article for illustrations and an explanation of the science involved. http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mglue.
