Kinetic molecular theory and repulsive forces

[thebillsfan]

I know there are NO attractive or repulsive forces in the ke theory, but i always read that there are 'repulsive' forces during a collision. these are just newton's 3rd law forces and not true electrostatic like-repels-like repulsive forces right? when they say repulsive they just mean their collision is forcing them away from each other and NOT any coulombic force?

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[kentavr]

I know there are NO attractive or repulsive forces in the ke theory, but i always read that there are 'repulsive' forces during a collision. these are just newton's 3rd law forces and not true electrostatic like-repels-like repulsive forces right? when they say repulsive they just mean their collision is forcing them away from each other and NOT any coulombic force?

Yes and No. The repulsive force has an electromagnetic force as its cause. The 3rd of Newton law does not consider anything about nature of the force and it is still correct. Since the coulombic force is conservative you don't need to think about its nature since Energy is still conserved. On the level of dynamic of collision the micro level of interaction does not matter.

 

[thebillsfan]

Yes and No. The repulsive force has an electromagnetic force as its cause. The 3rd of Newton law does not consider anything about nature of the force and it is still correct. Since the coulombic force is conservative you don't need to think about its nature since Energy is still conserved. On the level of dynamic of collision the micro level of interaction does not matter.

this is really an issue of semantics i guess, but how can they say there are no repulsive forces btw molecules and then say when they collide elastically they exert repulsive forces on each other?