Does a solid, like a night stand, vibrate macroscopically because the atoms and molecules that make up the solid vibrate?

Question

We know particles that make up solids vibrate, but do the solids vibrate themselves because of that? Like a structure or object like a night stand, does that night stand vibrate macroscopically because the particles are vibrating microscopically ?

Answer 1

The short answer is "no".

A little longer answer allows the "no" to be less categorical for

solids with very few atoms, or for solids whose atoms do not vibrate randomly.

Here is the long answer.

The statement "A solid vibrates macroscopically" means "Its center of mass vibrates".

The center of mass is the "average" center of mass of all the atoms.

(The word "average" could be made more precise, if you desire).

The vibration of an average of randomly vibrating atoms decreases with the increasing number of atoms.

Your question can be answered theoretically and experimentally.

THERETICAL ANSWER:

The limit of vibration of the center of mass is 0 as

the number of randomly vibrating atoms approaches infinity.

That means that your question cannot really be answered "yes" or "no" -- it is a matter of degree.

The more randomly vibrating atoms comprise the solid, the smaller is the vibration of the center of mass.

You can get closer to answering "yes" if you have fewer atoms, or

if the vibration of atoms is not random.

For example, in an MRI machine atoms are made to vibrate synchronously, not randomly,

and that can cause their center of mass to vibrate.

Or more crudely, when a heavy truck drives nearby, your night stand will vibrate;

that vibration is due to vibrating atoms. But importantly, it is due to atoms

vibrating synchronously, not randomly.

EXPERIMENTAL ANSWER:

As discussed above, vibration of individual atoms does cause vibration of the solid to some small degree.

The experimental question is whether we can detect the vibration of the solid.

For that, the detector would have to vibrate less the solid under test.

As discussed in the theoretical part, we can reduce the random vibration of the detector by increasing its mass.

However, your example of a night stand has so many atoms, that there is no existing

detector for its tiny vibration due to RANDOM vibration of atoms.