ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Fermi resonance

Let's say you have two friends, Tom and Jerry. Tom likes to play the drum, while Jerry enjoys playing the guitar. When they play together, the sound they make is called music. But have you ever noticed that when Tom strikes the drum, sometimes the guitar also vibrates a little bit even though no one is playing it? This is because the sound waves from the drum can sometimes make the guitar strings vibrate too. This is called a resonance.

Similarly, in molecules, there are different ways that the atoms can vibrate or move around. When the energy from one vibration matches the energy from another, there can be a resonance between them. When two vibrations resonate like this, they can interact and affect each other. This is called Fermi resonance.

Think of it like two friends on a swing. When they swing at the same speed, they resonate and can interact with each other. They might even start to swing higher or more erratically. In molecules, when two vibrations resonate, they can change each other's energy levels, making the molecule behave differently than it would if only one vibration was present.

So, Fermi resonance happens when two vibrations in a molecule have energies that match up and they start to interact and change each other's behavior.