Degeneracy pressure

Imagine that you have a group of kids playing tag in a small area. The faster and more energetic they are, the more they bump into each other and start to push and pull on each other. Now imagine that these kids are really tiny and can't touch each other directly. Instead, they all have a really strong force field around them that pushes against anything that gets too close.

This force field is kind of like degeneracy pressure. Degeneracy pressure is a fancy way of saying that when you have a bunch of tiny particles (like atoms or subatomic particles), they start to push back against each other really hard when they get too close. But instead of pushing with other forces like gravity or electromagnetism, degeneracy pressure comes from a rule of physics called the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

Basically, the Pauli Exclusion Principle says that no two particles can be in the exact same place at the exact same time. So when a bunch of particles get squeezed together really tightly (like inside a star), they start to run out of places to go and are forced to obey this rule even harder. They can't all crowd into the same tiny space at the same time, so they end up pushing against each other harder and harder to try and spread out.

This is what creates degeneracy pressure. It's like a really strong force field that pushes back against anything that tries to get too close. In stars, this pressure is what keeps the outer layers from collapsing inwards and crushing the core into a tiny ball. It's also what keeps white dwarf stars (which are made mostly of degenerate electrons) from collapsing into a black hole.

So next time you're playing tag with your friends, remember that even though you can touch them directly, they still have a force field like degeneracy pressure that keeps you from getting too close!